Don Norman on how design fails older consumers
The designers at Apple apparently believe that text is ugly, so it should either be eliminated entirely or made as invisible as possible. … Today, Apple’s products violate all the fundamental rules of design for understanding and usability, many of which Tognazzini and I1 had helped develop. As a result, even a manual is not enough: all the arbitrary gestures that control tablets, phones, and computers have to be memorized. Everything has to be memorized.
It’s not just a problem for the elderly, either.
Both Norman and Tognazzini were formerly employees of Apple and are very much worth listening to.↩︎