Comment by rzzzwilson 10 hours ago
There's a quote from Bjarne Stroustrup showing it's not just Seniors having trouble:
I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone.
He was around 40 years old when he said it and he wasn't talking about smartphones - at least what we call smartphones today.
> "I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone".
> I said that after a frustrating attempt to use a "feature-rich" telephone sometime around 1990. I'm sure the sentiment wasn't original, and probably not even the overall phrasing; someone must have thought of that before me.
He worked for AT&T at the time, right? Those corporate PBX systems had all sorts of crazy features which people mastered by pounding the 12 keys really fast. And he was probably on the bleeding edge of that. (In many places digital voice mail commonly predated email.)
edit to agree: obv Stroustrup in 1990 was not talking about your cell phone.
The terminal menu driven interfaces were archaic but a dream.
You had help, everything was explained in manuals, they rejected invalid outputs. Now everything is close eyes, press enter and pray it works.
Siemens ISDX was what I worked with. To build a new corporate extension was something like option 5-2-1-1 ext code Y 2-4-7 and then 9 to confirm.
Simpler times.
Telephones only seem intuitive because we got taught to use them as kids. If you look back, there was a massive effort to teach people to use them.
You can still find some of the educational films: https://youtu.be/p45T7U5oi9Q?si=5fiNEiqccg41nxQb
Bjarne Stroustrup is 74, so he probably counts as a senior too at this point, although surely more technically literate than the stereotypes.
Still, I'm in my early 40s and I find myself baffled when I help my mom with her iPhone. I've been an Android guy ever since that was an option.