Just a couple first impressions from your site... loading it on a phone, the first thing I see is this: https://imgur.com/4maP1vV
(1) The entire contents of the site is completely covered by a cookie warning. This is honestly quite annoying even for an SWE like me, never mind your target audience.
I know at least one older person who doesn't understand these cookie modals at all and refuses to touch them. They either continue using the site in the background without accepting/rejecting(!), or if that's not possible they just leave the site.
I'd suggest you carefully check whether you actually need this modal at all. If the only cookies you use are technically necessary, then (based on my layman understanding of the law) you don't need to show it. If you absolutely must use tracking cookies, then maybe consider a more subtle approach that allows the user to continue reading the page without deciding.
(2) "Join Now" makes it sound like I'm signing up to a subscription, rather than making a one-off payment.
Neither did about half of the millennials, so why don't they need similar help?
I don't think the qualifier is age, rather it is prior computer experience. I am elderly, and only started using a smartphone (as opposed to feature phone) about four years ago, but I have had my hands on computer keyboards for over 50 years, so learning to use all the basic features of a smartphone didn't require any help.
Likewise, many millennials did grow up using computers. If you already understand basics on a PC like bootup, shutdown, login, system settings, installing a program, starting a program, finding a program, copy/paste, upload/download, the smartphone should not present much of a challenge. Otherwise, learning a smartphone is mostly just learning how to use a computer.
I did reach out to several people in my friendship, gave them free the course just to get feedback. None of them watched it, so thats very, very surprising for me. Maybe i should go up to random strangers and PAY THEM in order to give them something that would benefit them - and maybe get some feedback:))
But on the other hand, I've got very lovely reviews on udemy, so apparently those who find it love it and thats very encouraging.
It is pretty normal to compensate people for their time in my limited experience (both as subject and from what I hear about user testing). Usually it's a pretty small amount, not like a normal salary but a bit more than a cup of coffee for maybe 30-45 minutes of their time (assuming they don't have to travel to you in addition). They are helping you create a commercial product, it is not weird to do something in return, although I understand also what you're saying about how they might benefit from it themselves
Perhaps you could do a small amount, say (the equivalent cost of) a good cup of coffee, plus a free copy of the course so they can use it themselves and show some others? That spreads the word in addition to them feeling compensated
I'm not a marketing expert though, just going off of what I hear and experienced from other companies
It may not benefit them, it hasn't been tested. It will benefit you, because it will provide testing.
Such a tremendous amount of work, really Kudos! So cool.
Come along for a coffee (free!) and a showing of a film that will teach you how to use your smartphone.
Your grandkids will be bowled over by your new tech abilities!
All we ask is for you to answer an anonymous questionnaire at the end. No need to give any personal details.
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Or something like that...?
Long-press to turn on a powered-off phone is not a standard. Even I don't know how to turn these devices on, so I do a combination of multiple short presses, multiple long presses until it works.
Powering the phone off via the button won't work on modern phones, since the hardware power button has become the tool to invoke an assistant. You need to swipe down the notifications twice and use the software power button from there.
In this room I have 6 Android devices from different manufacturers.
Then there are so many OS differences between all the vendors, that it becomes almost impossible to teach someone who doesn't know how Android generally works if it isn't on their own device.
But I congratulate him for doing these videos and hope that the elderly manage to learn from the course.
ALL versions of Android OS allows you to set the power button back to power on long-press - you just have to go back into settings to change it; although the Pixel range had a recent update change to Gemini as default. Similar to the double-tap for quick camera.
I have hot-word detection turned off, so I think the button is a good compromise.
I don't mind the repurposing of the power button. I prefer it being used for something else, since I don't power it off very often.
The only thing which bothers me a bit in the repurposed state is that the power-off menu includes an emergency button, which is now hidden behind a couple of levels of swiping and clicking. And accessing it from the lock screen again varies among vendors.
I motherfucking hate this with extreme and excessive prejudice. The fucking power button ends up having nothing to do with fucking power, what level of "War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery" are we even talking about at that point?
Fortunately, my phone (a Sony Xperia) has an option to change it back to turning the fucking phone on/off, but it's still not the default and it's fucking stupid and I fucking hate it.
I'm curious how much feedback you'll get of the form, "don't teach me all this stuff, just teach me how to look at photos of my grandkids".
[0] and not just the elderly, although I feel the elderly are worse about this in general
here are a couple of links to the course:
https://smartphonehowto.com/gift/ - "Save time & help your loved ones" - for people who might want to introduce this course to someone they know
https://smartphonehowto.com/ - "Stay connected with family and friends" - for people who might want to take this course
However, I noticed that a lot of people my age didn't share my interest in this area. I helped as often as they would let me, but to a man, they just weren't willing to take the time to get interested. They just wanted their stuff to work. They also had no idea of all the features their products were capable of performing. (Cellphone anyone?)
I've often wondered if it was the way I was 'wired' or if I just had the urge to know these things. Well done on the project!
Long time ago when we were moving, i found an old school book of mine from 7th grade elementary: there was a kid with a wrench repairing a bicycle on the front cover. I remember thinking: thats not really a thing anymore.
That's the normal attitude people have to almost everything.
I'm sure you can name something you only care to see work and not know how it works; electronics is that to that other person.
It's also why software have (d)evolved to remove customization, because most people don't change the defaults anyway (they don't even know what a "default" is besides the financial term, maybe).
The long running "Easy Tablet Help for Seniors" is much simpler and free.
Sorry! Don't want to discourage your work though!
Generations is pretty good if not a little dated but all free. http://www.generationsonline.com/
Drive your learning is great collaboration between AT&T and Digitunity. I'm uncertain if every course is free but I'm really loving their cybersecurity lessons. http://www.driveyourlearning.org/
Oasis has some great videos as well. Again, I appreciate their safety lessons. https://connections.oasisnet.org/Safety/
I don't use apps on my phone except for phone calls and texts, mostly because I have no clues whatsoever.
I'm probably in your target audience, but:
1) Too expensive for something I'm not convinced will improve my life (it seems to me that people who know how to use smartphones spend 90%+ of their free time looking at it, rather than interacting with real live people), which leads to
2) How will learning this make my life better?
Also a suggestion - pretty much everyone uses WhatsApp in the UK, mostly everyone I know will be in a WhatsApp group with their parents (and/or grandparents!). Definitely worth adding that as a module!
Yeah, you are partly right about that (they are not there for confusion's sake).
I just didn't had the stomach to leave those things unmentioned as I'm personally not fond of the monopoly either. So thought to still at least put somewhere at the end. Make some poweruser grandmas:)
Whatsapp, indeed is a good idea, will add that, thanks!
And then, since you have one base covered for one "sphere" of the world, you also need to cover Telegram and Facebook Messenger, rofl
I even mention at the end of the intro that if you can put up with my accent, you'll be good to go:)
I’m sorry to say my experience has been “Android = pain” as far as the oldies are concerned. Had years supporting MiL and her endless devices. Then two years ago we got her an iPad instead. Support requirement has dropped to pretty much nil.
most of the world cannot even afford S or A models from Samsung.
But please consider removing or changing that huge cookie banner on the main page. The amount of people that will simply choose to not interact with the site at all and X out immediately when seeing this might be higher than you think. That would be my first instinct.
I don't think people realise how much of a weird bubble this site is. Take the comments above about how you like learning stuff but most people don't:
That means WE'RE the weird ones, not most people!
The last thing you want is people like us giving feedback. Also the F-Droid stuff... I mean come on.
Your target market is clueless. They don't care about cookies banners, advanced customisation, software freedoms, etc. They just want to message their grandkids online and are probably terrified of being scammed out of their savings. They probably don't like change or learning complicated new things either.
But hey, I'm not one. Go and speak to your market and see what they want, if anything. And ignore 95% of comments here. Most people aren't as paranoid as techies.
Then they would have a fixed place where they can find the 2FA code and not to mess around with the notifications. It's more complicated but more robust as well.
I have a question about something I noticed in "Preview of 03.07. Finding & launching apps" - In this lesson, what you refer to as the "desktop" is something I typically refer to as "home screen" - Is "desktop" really the preferred way to describe that screen?
I don't know of any higher authority on what to call it actually. Technically that "app" (it is an android app just like any other) is called a launcher, i went with desktop, but I also like home screen, and I think I probably use these terms interchangeably in the course.
(You actually can install a different launcher if you are not happy with yours.)
This might be best to have be configurable, so that I can pick what a family member already knows
Some people have previously used a computer professionally and know what a desktop is, so for them it's fine to use the word (my dad would be one of those). Others have more smartphone experience and I think I use the words home screen (my mom I think) and start screen (my grandma). It's like you mention a word and see how they react to it: do they get what concept you're referring to from the word's components? Do they repeat it back to you later, did it stick, or do they at least understand it the next time you say it? When you ask "what screen do you get when you turn the device on", what word do they use? I base my wording on things like that, so it's not just region- or family-specific but even person-specific, in my experience
I will have a look at your material. Maybe I can localize it to my needs.
When I first got my phone was looking for an Android course which would explain all the above concepts (and more, like what is launcher, how notifications work, what other APIs there are, location, camera, microphone, etc.). But didn't find anything, only found courses/books about application development in Java/Kotlin. I have no interest in Android programming, just want to know how it works.
Although there are code references, most of them explain the concepts in the beginning or inbetween. Just ignore the code parts.
Here is an example for the notifications you mentioned: https://developer.android.com/develop/ui/views/notifications
But you can find info on the other topics in here as well.
Putting it all together is quite an effort, are you satisfied on the returns considering the time/effort you've put into it?
Please see my comment below about translations though!
But first i'd like to see enouh traffic on the course in the most popular language available and then I'll consider putting more effort into it.
Also, to be fair, the site has a clear video that shows step-by-step process of ... purchasing the course.
I think our senior population changes and there are plenty of them that had contact with desktop and touchscreen devices, but get easily confused and can't keep up with updates. I know many such people and would love something like that, but translated.
