Post #3942848

Recently, while helping an older person figure out how to do something on their smartphone I was struck by how utterly opaque they are. Older computers had many issues, but at least you generally had windows that told you which application you were looking at, menus and buttons with words on them so you could see the options you had and have some rough idea of what they would do, and often even a built-in help feature. On a smartphone it can be non-obvious what application you're looking at. UI is often accomplished by gestures that may have subtle differences and be difficult to describe or even replicate by observing. The small screen and precise touch required make it especially challenging for anyone with any limitations on sight or motor skills. Worse yet, other computer systems seem to be taking their cues from mobile OSs more and more (and even before that they had begun to move to opaque icons rather than words on their buttons). It's really unfortunate that smartphones have become the predominate form of computer. I had hoped that AR headsets might lead to much more usable UI for small portable computers (like smartphones), but I think Google and Meta have pretty well soiled the reputation of AR glasses.