[HN Gopher] Yayagram
___________________________________________________________________
Yayagram
Author : paulhart
Score : 700 points
Date : 2021-04-29 15:18 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| Grakel wrote:
| I wonder if it's harder to voice-to-text your average Yaya.
| nanna wrote:
| This is cute but bearing in mind most of today's grandparents (at
| least in the West) have had decades of using computers
| professionally and at least a good few years using tablets and
| smartphones, I really think the pitch should be directed
| elsewhere. I especially don't think they would appreciate a
| 'telegram' feature!
|
| Also, I know it's not meant literally, but its genderisation as
| 'granny' is a really problematic cliche that I wish tech folk
| would stop repeating.
| nanna wrote:
| Look, let me put this another way, since I'm being downvoted.
|
| I think my 70 year old mum, who is a grandma, would find it
| patronising and sexist to have a device pitched to her as an
| easier to use version of the iPad she is a bloody master of in
| every way. She's far more adapt than my dad, bless him, but
| even he can use WhatsApp and the like fine after being shown.
| andrewzah wrote:
| It's called that because they made it specifically for their
| grandmother. Do we really need to state that it's going to
| depend on the particular person and their needs?
|
| Also, that grandmother is _96_. That is not even remotely
| close to someone in their ~70s. It is also dependent on the
| person: one of my grandmothers (around 70) doesn't like
| ipads, and can operate phones a little bit. My other grandma,
| similar age, loves her ipad.
|
| You're being downvoted because you're treating this like a
| generalized business pitch, when it's a specialized hardware
| project someone did for their own grandmother, and gave it a
| cute name based on their language. If I made something
| specifically for my grandmother, I might include "bunica" in
| the name. Seeing as that's what my whole family calls her,
| and its a way to say grandmother in Romanian, which is a
| gendered language.
|
| Also, I fail to see how the gender of the word for
| grandmother here is relevant for the discussion. Grammatical
| genders (also called noun classes) are not necessarily
| related to human sexes, but I digress.
| atleta wrote:
| Actually, I wanted to say something very similar. And when
| you said it was for his very specific _96_ year old
| grandma, I went back and checked if I missed the obvious.
| But a quick 2nd scan (and a search on the string 96) didn't
| bring it up. I'm not saying you're wrong, indeed I'm pretty
| sure you're right, but it's very-very far from obvious.
|
| Also, the initial tweet itself talks about the issue in
| pretty generic terms: "a machine that helps our beloved
| elders to keep communicating with their grandchildren ."
|
| My parents are around 80, and granted my father was an
| engineer and my mother a _programmer_ they did have
| exposure to computers from their 40 's and 50's. (Actually,
| my mother started around the age of 30, but my father only
| when he was 50.) Sure, another 15-20 years make a lot of
| difference.
|
| However, plugging cables is more 1900's technology (reminds
| me of the manual switchboards). I doubt too many people
| alive today remember having to make a call like that as
| opposed to dialling. They did use radios that had push
| buttons and most of them for sure used ones with digital
| tuning. So while it looks very retro, a simple turning knob
| would have been a lot more sane. (Unless grandma used to be
| a switchboard operator :) and still has good hand
| coordination.)
|
| The other thing I don't get is the thermal printer. I mean
| it's nice as a (very short term) archival device but an LCD
| screen (or even and e-ink display) would make a lot more
| sense. Of course, then you have to add scrolling (that
| could be a tuning wheel-like thing or just up/down
| buttons). Or well, maybe they would like to hear their
| grandchildren :).
|
| But I digress: the point is that it was phrased pretty
| generally and I also think it's very patronizing. (My
| parents use skype, viber, email, fb chat as they did use
| SMS and their mobiles.) While sure, there is value in
| completely tailoring it to the needs of specific person.
| Just don't think it's in general a good approach.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. If you're
| answering a comment that you think is incorrect, do so in a
| netural and/or friendly way. Otherwise you just make the
| thread worse, no matter how right you are or feel you are.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| nanna wrote:
| Thanks for all your work, dang.
| andrewzah wrote:
| My apologies, will edit.
| nanna wrote:
| > you're treating this like a generalized business pitch,
| when it's a specialized hardware project someone did for
| their own grandmother, and gave it a cute name based on
| their language.
|
| Ok, fair enough, I accept your argument.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| The device isn't being pitched to old people who know how to
| use an iPad. It's being pitched to old people who don't. So
| your mum has nothing to worry about.
| notwhereyouare wrote:
| you put an ipad in front of my 80 year old grandma and she'll
| have NO idea how to use it. Even after training her and
| walking her through using it multiple times. She just won't
| remember.
|
| This device is basic and captures all the needs. I think the
| only other cool feature would be a way to receive voice chats
| back and play them to her
| atleta wrote:
| This is very far from being true as a generic statement. My
| parents are around 80 and they are not the only ones of
| this age I know who can use these devices pretty
| efficiently. (They both have an android smart phone plus
| they have a Linux laptop. They use these all the time. Oh,
| and they watch content and listen to internet radio on
| their Kodi running on a RasPi.)
|
| Of course _not all_ 80 year old will be able to use these
| efficiently or, for that matter will like using them, but
| that 's a different story. You can still make _those_
| easier to use (e.g. with a customized android skin /ui) or
| build a thing that somewhat looks like an actual but
| specialized computer.
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| I was about to say the same thing, but it seems you got flak
| for it. Here in the UK, a large percentage of 70+ year olds
| (my Father is 75) are totally au fait with mobile phones,
| computers and tablets. In fact a lot of older folk have moved
| to large tablets as it's easier to zoom the text and scroll
| around for people their age.
|
| Maybe it's a country-by-country thing?
| flobosg wrote:
| FWIW, the author's grandmother is twenty-six years older than
| your mother:
|
| https://twitter.com/mrcatacroquer/status/1386318879572570112
|
| > My Yaya is Felisa Romano Martin, from Segovia, 96 years
| old, and she is the best Yaya in the world.
| fauria wrote:
| That tweet goes along with an impressive picture of the
| Alcazar de Segovia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site medieval
| castle: https://www.eladelantado.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2018/01/ALc%... [1]
|
| More info:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alc%C3%A1zar_of_Segovia
|
| [1] Source (Spanish):
| https://www.eladelantado.com/segovia/la-imagen-segovia/
| [deleted]
| roamingryan wrote:
| I built out a simple "technology access" solution for my late
| grandma about five years ago. It was just some simple scripts
| running on a raspberry pi. The scripts would fetch emails from a
| gmail account, extract the attachments, and display them on loop.
| The subject line of the email, sender and the date were overlayed
| on the image.
|
| The advantage over those IoT picture frame products was that I
| could use any display I wanted. A cheap 32" TV was perfect. This
| was key as her vision degraded. The approach also allowed anyone
| in the family with email to send her photos, no proprietary apps
| or accounts required.
|
| She passed away mid-Covid and I didn't get to see her in her
| final 6 months, but she always bragged of her "picture machine."
| I think she was the envy of many of her fellow nursing home
| residents!
| FredPret wrote:
| I wish I could buy and ship this to my mom. Don't have the time
| to set it up and she lives far away.
| punnerud wrote:
| I have bought this for my grandma that live on a senior home:
| https://www.noisolation.com/global/komp
|
| Just one knob to turn it on and adjust the sound.
|
| My other grandma have an iPhone that she barely know how to
| use (she still have the old one on the wall she love). I
| first call her, than tell her to tap the green button if she
| she want to use camera (switch to FaceTime).
|
| This works great for us to keep contact.
|
| Though both of this is solutions only allow us to initiate
| the contact. Here the Yayagram is brilliant!
| seniorivn wrote:
| you can hire some local student to do the job, as long as you
| know how it should be done, any tech savvy highschool/uni
| student should do
| dqpb wrote:
| I want one. In fact I want there to be a whole line of quirky
| hardware interfaces to do simple things that we usually use a
| phone or computer for. They're fun and I think kids would love
| them.
| weasel_words wrote:
| Agreed! Give it a killer steampunk look and you've got yourself
| a win!
| fudged71 wrote:
| There was a kids "radio" project with a similar ethos posted a
| couple weeks ago!
| bradfitz wrote:
| I built this for my ~1.5 year old who loves music:
| https://twitter.com/bradfitz/status/1341470798825984001 ....
| a Raspberry Pi keyboard (no screen) with stickers on the keys
| that controls the Sonos.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| Two interesting things about this project.
|
| 1. Just about 100% of the code already existed, it just needed to
| be stuck together in a classy box. That's pretty damn cool:
| there's no need to re-invent the wheel for some advanced
| components, and it means more sophisticated ideas can be built
| quickly.
|
| 2. This has been posted 11 times on HN and it finally went viral:
| https://hn.algolia.com/?q=yayagram
| zackbloom wrote:
| I work on a company that is squarely targeted at the market of
| people who don't have Internet. Nearly 10% of Americans don't
| have Internet, the vast majority are older. During COVID, at
| least in my family, it was pretty stark. My grandmother didn't
| see a video of my nephews for essentially a year, as she was
| quarantined and doesn't know how to use a smartphone or tablet.
| She also doesn't have WiFi, so 'smart frames' and the like aren't
| an option (nor is this device unfortunately). It's a real market
| of real people.
| tectonic wrote:
| Are there LTE "dumb smart frames"?
| zackbloom wrote:
| Not to my knowledge. If anyone is interested in building one
| get in touch, it would be a fun thing to build. Right now we
| let people to mail videos [1]. Think a greeting card, but
| which plays your home movies.
|
| [1] - https://sendheirloom.com
| samjbobb wrote:
| Hey this is cool! Looks like a great idea for an
| underserved market, well executed.
| re wrote:
| I think it's amusing to imagine what the fifty-years-from-now
| equivalent of this might look like. "I built a fake 'cell phone'
| that lets my grandpa 'text' me, it translates the words into
| thoughts and beams them directly to my neural implant."
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Probably be a web service that does that for you. Like those
| old fax webservices.
| kaspm wrote:
| My bank sometimes requires me to "fax" documents to them
| using a phone number. I download their electronic documents,
| upload them to my esigning programing, esign them, then e-fax
| them using the esigning program to their fax "number". I'm
| sure on their end, they download the electronic "fax" and put
| it directly into their document system. There is no paper at
| any point in this process.
| tfsh wrote:
| I really appreciate the coverging of retro machines with modern
| APIs. I've been working on a smart home solution (automated
| blinds, etc), I really want to build a control panel with lots of
| physical switches like the Yayagram now
| coolspot wrote:
| See also: ad-free smart TV for elders -
| https://m.habr.com/ru/post/511060/
| dang wrote:
| Does anybody work on translating the best habr.com articles
| into English?
| andreygrehov wrote:
| I used to do it. You might remember there was a project
| called kukuruku.co - quite a lot of submissions from that
| domain were on the front page of HN. But, it was super hard
| for me to monetize the project, so I abandoned it. Fun fact:
| the founder of Habr wanted to buy the project from me, but I
| declined his offer.
| sdflhasjd wrote:
| When I'm asked to find some phone or other technology for an
| elderly relative, I'm always concerned about the usability of
| devices.
|
| A lot of companies and people don't realy appreciate how much
| training is really needed to operate even the simplest of mobile
| phones.
|
| I've not really seen any solutions other than making buttons
| bigger and reducing menu options, I'm sure these are great for
| those with deteriorating eyesight, but they aren't really
| offering anything for a person who has never used a smartphone
| before.
|
| The real solution has to be usable by someone who has never
| operated _any_ modern technology - It has to be so simple you
| could maybe even train a dog to use.
|
| An idea of mine is to have a bank of "walkie talkies" - one for
| each person you wish to speak to.
|
| And this problem is always growing; my parents haven't retired
| yet, but even they are struggling to use today's on-demand
| television. What will happen when digital terrestrial TV is shut
| down and they have to learn to use whatever new interface is on
| the successor to the inevitably cancelled Android TV.
| lacker wrote:
| _A lot of companies and people don 't really appreciate how
| much training is really needed to operate even the simplest of
| mobile phones._
|
| I completely agree, but at the same time it's funny that you
| can take a two-year-old without any formal technology training
| at all, accidentally leave an iPad where they can get it, and
| before long they're showing you gesture commands you didn't
| even know about.
| crusty wrote:
| My experience with this differential leads me to believe the
| train stems largely from caution and expectations.
|
| A small child has zero degree of caution. An older person
| knows they don't know and worries that ignorance will somehow
| break the device (permanently or temporarily).
|
| A small child usually doesn't have a formal expectation of
| what they are trying to achieve, it's largely
| experimentation, maybe with the intent to discover fun or
| find games, but it's pretty basic. An older person often will
| have a very specific y'all they would like to accomplish
| while being aware they aren't totally sure the device can do
| it, and if it can, how exactly to get the device to do it.
|
| I think these two inputs create a feedback loop that works to
| promote technology acquisition in children and retard it
| among older people.
| asoneth wrote:
| > A small child has zero degree of caution.
|
| As a parent of small children I regularly have to repair
| electronic devices that have been temporarily broken (e.g.
| different languages set, screens locked out, tablet storage
| filled by thousands of burst photos of the floor) and a
| small but growing collection of electronic devices that
| have been permanently broken (e.g. antennas pulled off of
| radios, keys pulled off keyboards, ports yanked out) by
| this lack of caution.
|
| > An older person knows they don't know and worries that
| ignorance will somehow break the device (permanently or
| temporarily).
|
| This may be rational learned behavior. If they don't have
| someone on hand to fix issues then with many interfaces
| it's surprisingly easy to get yourself stuck in a situation
| where it's not obvious how to get out.
| grok22 wrote:
| Yeah, this is something I too struggle to understand. A kid
| new to it quickly gets the basics of an iPad. But a grandma
| struggles with it. Maybe all their preconceived notions cause
| a mental barrier for some older folks in adopting new
| technology? Maybe it's just that people are variable in their
| adaptability and there probably will be kids too who find
| using an iPad really hard.
| JadeNB wrote:
| I made a sister comment slightly after yours
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26983932), but I
| think it's also worth noting that the two-year-old probably
| comes to the iPad with the idea of playing with it and
| seeing what happens. It's easy to make _something_ happen
| on an iPad, and the two-year-old is delighted by most of
| the responses.
|
| By contrast, someone older but less experienced to
| technology comes to the iPad with a specific goal in mind.
| Unlike toddlers, whose whole mission in life is to form an
| image of what to them is a uniformly mysterious world,
| these are smart people who don't want to have to learn a
| whole new paradigm to do one thing. Not only can they not
| do the thing they want; worse, the motion and lights that
| accompany their attempts are not delighting to them as to
| the two-year-old, but somewhere between distracting and
| unpleasant.
| nerdponx wrote:
| _Maybe all their preconceived notions cause a mental
| barrier for some older folks in adopting new technology?_
|
| I've observed this as well. The hardest part are the basic
| concepts. Examples:
|
| - The idea of a "settings menu" itself is somewhat of an
| alien concept and mostly limited to devices with screens.
|
| - Not all UI elements have obvious meanings if you aren't
| already used to them.
|
| - The input device itself might be unfamiliar (mouse,
| keyboard, touchscreen) and the user's brain might be busy
| trying to understand how to interact with the device at
| all, let alone do useful things with it.
|
| - Some users never learned the "why" or even the "what" of
| existing devices, only the "how" -- they don't understand
| concepts like "applications", they just follow very
| specific steps that someone laid out for accomplishing
| specific tasks. This makes it very difficult to discover
| functionality or adapt to a different UI, because they
| don't know what anything actually is in the first place.
| Leherenn wrote:
| I don't know, a common issue I have seen is pointing the
| camera towards their face during a video call. These are
| people that have been taking pictures with regular
| cameras for decades, but give them a smartphone and they
| can't target their face to save their lives. They're not
| stupid, and I don't think it's a new concept, it's just
| digital instead of analogic. But a lot of older people
| struggle, I don't understand.
| frereubu wrote:
| A regular camera has one function - to take photos of
| what it's pointing at. Phone cameras are often hidden in
| the screen of a device that does a huge number of
| different things.
| JadeNB wrote:
| Two-year olds have a lot less experience with how the world
| works, and so both have less to unlearn, and more patience to
| try lots of things that don't work until they find the one
| thing that works.
| ISL wrote:
| The biggest problem we have faced, unfortunately, is the
| proliferation of modern security features.
|
| Chromebooks are _awesome_ in many ways for the elderly, but the
| fact that you can 't disable password entry at startup has been
| a dealbreaker for my aging father. He can't type easily and is
| beginning to struggle with passwords.
|
| Paradoxically, this means that he's still running his Ubuntu
| laptop (he has been using UNIX systems since a DEC Alpha) but
| getting left behind on a lot of accessibility features and has
| minimal support from nursing-home staff.
|
| Struggling with passwords has also meant that he is endlessly
| resetting passwords or creating new accounts, compounding
| confusion.
|
| It is a tricky set of problems, with no easy answers.
| nicoburns wrote:
| You might want to try him with a password manager.
| boatsie wrote:
| It seems tempting to solve technological problems with more
| technology, but my experience is more technology is more
| problems. The password manager will update/ask for updates.
| It will ask about auto fill or saving passwords, etc. The
| people with password understanding problems definitely
| don't understand password management problems!
| frereubu wrote:
| 1Password has worked well for my 90-year-old mother. I
| disabled the "ask to save password" option. If she needs
| a new account on something - which doesn't happen very
| often - I just use Screen Sharing (we both have Macs) and
| set it up for her. I also have her 1Password account
| syncing to mine. Although I do still get support phone
| calls when there's a glitch, it's worked out very well on
| balance, compared to the amount of support she needed
| before with account setup and not using the same password
| _everywhere_.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Syncing the passwords to your own computer so that you
| can set them up is a genius idea.
| kawzeg wrote:
| I know this idea is a little ridiculous, but it just popped
| into my head: what about using one of those rubber ducky USB
| keys that pretend they're a keyboard and enter certain
| keystrokes? You could have it enter the password when
| inserted.
|
| Or, perhaps a physical password manager that can store
| multiple passwords, with a labeled button for each?
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| I have the same problem with my parents and I initially
| thought the Windows 10 pin screen was quite good for this.
| You only need 4 numbers, I set it to my birthdate and it's
| made things somewhat easier for them.
|
| That was until my mom phoned me telling me her keyboard was
| broken. Took me a while to diagnose that she was trying to
| enter letters into the pin-field and it gave no indication
| that you weren't supposed to do that, it just didn't input
| any characters.
|
| Also turns out the Windows account metaphor has gotten really
| confusing since they introduced microsoft accounts that are
| both local and online but don't necessarily share the same
| characteristics and now you have like 3 different passwords
| for the single "account" concept.
| mtrovo wrote:
| I don't know which brand you looked at but I'm pretty sure
| Chromebooks support fingerprint login for some time now
| (check this HP support page for ChromeOS for instance [0]).
|
| But I agree with the overall tone of what you're saying and I
| have the same kind of problem with my parents. I think the
| movement away from common protocols just made it worse,
| before you could have a simplified client just for the
| elderly or any other "niche" group and it would work, now if
| you do something like this for Whatsapp or Instagram you
| would probably receive a cease and desist letter.
|
| [0] https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06917763
| wanderingstan wrote:
| FWIW, fingerprint login has never worked for my elderly
| parents. The combination of drier skin, shaky fingers, and
| poorer sense of pressure means they could never get it
| quite right. (And on iPhone, always ended up pressing the
| home button.)
|
| I've noticed in the last decade that my fingers too have
| less oil and I sometimes have to wet my finger.
| abraae wrote:
| There are so many beautiful UI hints with this.
|
| 1) The shape of the microphone positively urges the user to lean
| forward and talk into it. Compare to a modern smartphone where
| it's not at all obvious where the microphone is.
|
| 2) The giant red button next to the microphone positively scream
| "press me to talk", and it's obvious that the red LED will light
| up when the button is pressed. Removes any "is this thing on"?
| thoughts.
|
| 3) The patch panel is quite genius, it's obvious how to target
| the desired recipient. One might quibble with the plug systenm,
| but using the large style plugs is a great choice for unsteady
| hands. These plugs have more leeway if not plugged all the way in
| than micro style plugs.
|
| 4) The recipients are all in a line, and due to the design, one
| of them is always selected. That removes any "did I select
| someone", sa I sometimes experience when sharing on my phone to
| some social network.
|
| 5) What's more, the last selected recipient is persistent, even
| in the event of a power cut.
|
| 6) Thermal printer is genius. Yaya can tear off important
| messages and carry them with her.
| cellularmitosis wrote:
| > These plugs have more leeway if not plugged all the way in
| than micro style plugs
|
| Oh, that's a great point! You could route a simple on/off
| signal across only the sleeve, and not even use the tip at all.
| Even if it were only half-way inserted, it would still work.
|
| Edit: looking more closely at the photos, it appears that's
| exactly what he's doing, neat!
| randomdrake wrote:
| For folks interested in technology that helps to keep our less-
| technological relatives connected, I highly recommend
| NanaGram[0].
|
| I've been a paid user since the early days and it's an absolute
| delight to my grandmother every single time it shows up during
| the month.
|
| 1. Register and get a unique phone number to text
|
| 2. Start sending photos to that number via SMS
|
| 3. Share the phone number with other relatives and tell them to
| do the same
|
| 4. Grandparent gets envelope of printed photos just like the ones
| filling their old albums on the shelves
|
| It really is that easy. It's affordable. And the founder is very
| responsive to any support inquiries.
|
| It was a service I always wanted to build myself but never had
| the time. I'm very grateful for it.
|
| [0] - https://nanagram.co/
| throwaway823882 wrote:
| Yaya: "Oh what the hell has this crazy kid made now..."
| ALittleLight wrote:
| My thoughts are that the font should be larger for the names and
| and for the text output. Ideally include pictures next to the
| names, so even if it's hard to read, it would be easy to spot who
| you want to connect to. I didn't see it, but you also probably
| need a notification to reload the paper roll as you come to the
| end. This could be a warning LED and it could also be a warning
| text sent to some or all of the people on the other end of the
| YAYAGRAM that Yaya is running low on paper, can you help her
| reload?
| roughly wrote:
| This is such a beautiful project!
| khazhoux wrote:
| I only wish it weren't named Yaya, as I hate promoting the idea
| that old women are the pinnacle of technological ineptness. I
| know that wasn't the intent, but still. It's unfortunately a
| common expression to say "This product is so easy, even your
| grandmother can use it!" As if the only group more incompetent
| than old people, is old _women_ (or, if you prefer, the only
| group more incompetent than women are old women).
|
| I really think it's time to consciously move away from this
| outdated meme.
| Ashanmaril wrote:
| "Gram" also means grandma. The full English translation of this
| name is "Gramgram"
| sethammons wrote:
| > Gramgram
|
| which also means grandma :)
| throwaway316943 wrote:
| Gramagram would be another good name for this device
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| Agreed. The "even a mom can do it" is broken on so many levels.
| There's a documentary about the developers of Mozilla, and one
| of them makes a comment while golfing (I think) in response to
| this cliche. He says, "My mother writes optimizing compilers."
| Can't remember the film or the person, but they were wearing
| launch t-shirts that read "zaro boogs" (zero bugs) still sticks
| in my head.
|
| EDIT: Pretty sure it was "Code Rush", 2000.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_Rush
| jwatt wrote:
| That's in Code Rush:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q7FTjhvZ7Y&t=656s
| golemiprague wrote:
| In many cases it is true though, men are more technologically
| inclined and younger people have better cognitive skills and it
| is not going to change even if you force the whole population
| to say every morning that men and women are exactly the same or
| young and old are exactly the same
| bozzcl wrote:
| If you know that wasn't the intent, why make this complaint at
| all?
| khazhoux wrote:
| When people use the expression "So simple even your
| grandmother will understand it" I don't think they are trying
| to insult anyone. But... it _is_ an insult, whether it was
| meant that way or not.
| gordian-mind wrote:
| This type of bland complaint is just a common way nowadays to
| signal that you are part of the In-group, that _cares_ about
| people.
| khazhoux wrote:
| I can assure you that I am not luxuriating in the benefits
| and privileges of this fabled "In-group", and that I'm only
| trying to draw attention to the fact that the common
| expression "So simple even your grandmother will understand
| it" is demeaning to both women and old people. Clearly you
| don't care about that, so there's little for us to discuss.
| frereubu wrote:
| I get what you're saying, but it's a one-off thing that the guy
| built especially _for_ his Yaya.
| khazhoux wrote:
| Totally get that. My point is that "Even your grandmother can
| use it" is still a common saying, combining both sexism and
| agism, and we should stop promoting that notion.
|
| To illustrate this, if it was this guy's uncle who was
| techno-challenged and he named it "Unclegram", probably most
| people would be scratching their heads. But we see Yayagram
| and it "makes sense"... because _of course grandmothers
| struggle with technology!_ See the problem?
| frereubu wrote:
| Absolutely. I'm very sensitive to that kind of thing
| because I have a 90-year-old mother who I hate people
| writing off like that. But unless I missed it he doesn't
| say "Even your grandmother can use it" in his thread does
| he? I just feel like you're picking the wrong item to hang
| this argument from.
| khazhoux wrote:
| The inventor was not generalizing, but when it starts
| moving from his one-off to a product idea (as lots of
| folks are asking for him to productize it) that where my
| argument comes in. Most likely this won't be a real
| product anyway, so I suppose I'm just trying to draw
| attention to this meme that does happen a lot.
| abraae wrote:
| You realise that (typically) an uncle would be one
| generation younger and thus have decades more exposure to
| technology, hence "so simple my uncle could use it" doesn't
| really work.
|
| It's hard to hide from the fact that seniors are more
| likely to struggle with technology. You can't sweep that
| under a politically correct rug. And if we did, people
| would be less likely to make things like this, because no-
| one could talk about them.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| This is so great. I'm really moved by the author's empathy and
| love. Those of you who are lucky enough to still have
| grandparents (or parents for that matter), please take
| inspiration to connect with them while you still can. Life is
| short, and nothing in the world can take the place of family.
| falcolas wrote:
| I firmly believe there is a market for this. Please, someone,
| make it a commercial reality.
| newsclues wrote:
| I think it needs a scanner to turn letters into txt/email
| falcolas wrote:
| Even a camera on the edge could work pretty well with the
| right image transformations.
|
| A printer driver, that could optionally print "the last photo
| received" to an inkjet printer, would be another great
| addition for a doting grandparent.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| Is there a way to create something like this for video calls? An
| always-on device that can make calls through Skype or similar? Or
| are the protocols too closed and apps too unavailable to make it
| possible.
| layer8 wrote:
| You could probably use an iPad in kiosk mode (single app always
| shown) mounted with an always-connected charger.
| fudged71 wrote:
| There have been more than one startup with the idea that an
| iPad should sit on your wall as a window into another
| person's house.
| wikibob wrote:
| Alexa devices have auto answer mode
| spookyuser wrote:
| This is incredible, I wish there were more analogue centered
| devices for older people with both hearing and vision loss. The
| combination makes it virtually impossible to interact with any
| well designed software because it's all touch screen and way too
| complicated. But also makes it impossible to interact with the
| limited number of phones with analogue buttons because they are
| usually feature phones with even worse designed software than
| touchscreen phones and at that point the analogue buttons don't
| really help at all. So yeah this is truly incredible.
| thirdlamp wrote:
| On top of the points others in this thread have made, I think
| this is also a lesson for UX designers. It's really obvious how
| the Yayagram works and how to use it and this is how our UX
| should be.
| musingsole wrote:
| NUIs: iNuitive User Interfaces used to be (perhaps still is) an
| interesting design philosophy in the UX space. The goal being
| to build a system that a brand new user fresh off the boat
| could walk up to and intuit what the system could do and how to
| manipulate the system to solve their problems. Though this is
| complicated by our thought patterns and habits being altered by
| just interacting with computer systems. So, it becomes hard to
| pinpoint exactly what "intuitive" means to an audience as wide
| as the entire population or even small groups like "university
| students".
|
| Thinking this way becomes incredibly important as systems move
| from dedicated devices further into coordinated actions of
| ubiquitous devices.
| hervature wrote:
| Does NUI not stand for Natural User Interface? iNtuitive is
| definitely Non-intuitive.
| goldenchrome wrote:
| As a former UX designer, this is a wonderful device and I love
| it. It was clearly made with a particular user in mind and they
| thoughtfully designed around the user constraints.
|
| It's effective because it's as simple as possible, and relies
| heavily (as pointed out by the designer multiple times) on very
| old metaphors like switchboards, telegrams, and binary state
| indicator lights. It feels obvious because these metaphors have
| been in our lives for decades, so we're very familiar with
| them. But it doesn't mean that we didn't have to learn them at
| one point. It's sort of like how the Beatles sound like regular
| music today, but in their heyday they made very new sounds and
| lots of people thought it was shit music.
|
| I feel like UX designers are devalued because they often seem
| to create irritation rather than harmony. Let me tell you, it's
| a real pain in the ass making harmonious experiences when
| you're playing second fiddle to short term business goals, or
| even third fiddle to short term engineering constraints. I
| would love to go into Gmail and declare it a finished product
| and get the whole team to spend a year figuring out which
| features we can strip out to simplify the product and design it
| holistically like this Yayagram, but it's a terrible business
| decision so we're not doing it.
|
| In real life, UX designers are there simply to prevent large
| apps from devolving into CRUD hell, and it's nearly Sisyphean.
| sevencolors wrote:
| Yeah i feel like a new UX idea isn't fully appreciated till
| many years later when they're widely accepted
| paxys wrote:
| What's the lesson here? Yes this is a simple UI, but if put
| next to an iPhone which one will a billion+ people pick?
| operator-name wrote:
| Although the iPhone is a more popular device it doesn't fill
| the accessability needs of all users. Just as many countries
| have disabilities acts for manufacturing and civil
| engineering, shouldn't technology and platforms have
| something similar?
| kall wrote:
| I absolutely love it but is it really obvious how the jack
| connection thing works? I would imagine only to former
| switchboard operators and modular synthesizer players.
| psadri wrote:
| The cable could be replaced with a rotary switch with stops
| for each recipient. I'd also add a picture of each grandchild
| in addition to the name. But overall, this is an awesome idea
| :-)
| bredren wrote:
| I could see this, maybe each time the dial settles into its
| little ka-thunk index might also play "hello grandma" in
| the grandchild's voice.
| nojs wrote:
| This is amazing. I can think of several relatives who would
| absolutely love something like this over struggling with a
| touchscreen.
| bozzcl wrote:
| Sometimes, the fact that my parents and grandmother are so good
| with technology disappoints me because I have fewer chances of
| building cool stuff like this.
| aimor wrote:
| This is really neat. It has me thinking about my own grandma who
| loves getting pictures on her phone, but is that the best
| interface for her? What if I could send pictures and they'd
| automatically print out, I think she'd like that even more. I
| think it's funny because that's a pretty easy thing to set up,
| but I never considered it until now.
| throwaway316943 wrote:
| Combine this with the email based picture display and you're
| set. Just an rPi and an inkjet.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _What if I could send pictures and they 'd automatically print
| out_
|
| I did that for my mother with a surplus Powerbook and an inkjet
| printer. I'd just VNC in and print out the picture.
|
| Worked great for a while. Then one day she dumped a cup of
| coffee into the keyboard. "Oh, it's no big deal. I'm sure you
| do it all the time," she said. End of pictures.
| selljamhere wrote:
| This is brilliant. It can help connect an entire generation that
| might otherwise be "left behind" in a thoughtful and meaningful
| way.
| grok22 wrote:
| Something like this needs to be made commercial at a reasonable
| price-point :-(. It will help bridge the technology gap between
| aged grand-parents who aren't comfortable with modern tech and
| up-to-date grand-kids who live in far-flung places and are more
| comfortable with the newer methods of communication. Also
| connecting to a network must be made transparent somehow in these
| devices like Kindle's WhisperNet.
| zackbloom wrote:
| I would say the single biggest issue right now is the cost of
| an LTE modem and service. Cursory research shows a fully
| integrated modem is on the order of $44 at small quantities.
| Obviously cell phone manufactures get that number way down but
| they also manufacture at very high quantities.
|
| It looks like service is on the order of $0.50 per month per
| device, plus $0.33 per MB. That's not prohibitive, but it would
| mean the device would likely have to have a subscription of at
| least $19 a month.
| anxrn wrote:
| Is LTE necessary? It seems that 3G or even 2G might suffice,
| and might be cheaper?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I would assume those networks will be shut down sooner
| rather than later in most places. I think 2G already is
| gone in the US.
| ape4 wrote:
| Is there a video of a gramma using it?
| Thorentis wrote:
| This is brilliant. A single device that does one thing, and does
| it (hopefully) really well. It is a much needed antidote to the
| "all in one" apps we are seeing more and more of.
|
| Touchscreens really embody the "all in one" design pattern, and
| lend themselves to those types of apps. That's after all what
| they're intended for: interchangeable interfaces. Nice to see a
| modern service being used with an analog interface.
| chobytes wrote:
| Bothers me to no end how many once simple devices have gone
| this way. I feel like I would be willing to pay more for
| simpler appliances at this point.
| jdgoesmarching wrote:
| Touchscreens and tiny computers are cheap and getting
| cheaper. It's easier than manufacturing specific components
| for "simpler" devices. I just wish companies would stop
| pretending like it's an advanced feature rather than a cost-
| cutting measure.
| donw wrote:
| Oh, god, this. Specifically simple appliances that are
| designed to be _repaired_.
| everfraid wrote:
| This is why I really enjoy the Kindle I just bought. A single
| use: reading books.
| capableweb wrote:
| Doesn't the Kindle have a browser too? If you'd like to pay
| mess and be able to do even less, you can try reMarkable.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Kindle browser is so shitty that nobody would use it.
| calmoo wrote:
| The kindle browser is so unusable that you wouldn't even be
| bothered with it.
| donw wrote:
| The Kindle browser is designed to encourage you to give up
| on the Web and read more books.
| chris_engel wrote:
| This is the reason why I like Telegram so much more than
| WhatsApp. The fact theres an API and the possibility to write
| bots makes all the difference.
| zingplex wrote:
| The use of an XLR cord is a stroke of genius. Having the state of
| the machine clearly visible and manipulatable by people with fine
| motor problems solves 90% of the problems I encounter when
| volunteering with the elderly.
| [deleted]
| mdtusz wrote:
| It appears to be using an 1/4" patch cord, not an XLR cable!
| XLR is the cable (and connector) with 3 pins as is used with
| microphones and carries a balanced signal - 1 leg is ground,
| then the other two are inverted signals to minimize noise.
| zingplex wrote:
| Yeah, you're right. My brain made the association between XLR
| and generic audio cables without thinking.
| Naracion wrote:
| A single 3 pin XLR will only carry balanced signal for a
| single channel (which this might as well be). For stereo you
| either need two 3 pin XLR (as is the case for interconnects
| in high end or pro audio) or a single 4 pin XLR (as is found
| in high end headphones).
|
| The way it works is so simple yet genius. Say the main signal
| is +x. Then one of the pins will carry -x. At the end, the
| receiving end will invert -x and add the two signals
| together. This gives x + -(-x) = 2x. So it gives twice the
| power. Great. So what?
|
| Well, if you introduce noise into the chain, it gets canceled
| out! Pin 1: X + noise Pin 2: -X + noise
|
| Final = pin1-pin2 = X+noise + X-noise = 2X
|
| Brilliant.
| OJFord wrote:
| Brilliant yes, but lest anyone think it's XLR-specific:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_signaling
|
| I assume it's also the reason for 'bi-wire' speakers, while
| we're on audio gear.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Back in the 2000s, my mother & grandmother communicated via fax
| because grandma didn't have a computer. This makes sense to me!
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleprinter#Obsolescence_of_te...
| kenorb wrote:
| Congrats on your project, looks promising! Thanks for using tg
| fork. If you've any new changes, feel free to send PRs.
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