I asked my 73-year-old dad whether he even wanted to be on the Internet.
"Yes," he replied matter-of-factly.
Why?
"So I can get the information that I need." Much of that information, it turns out, is Denver Broncos-related. But he also named games and connecting with old friends eventually.
The problem has been finding a reliable way for him to get to these rewards. Several years ago, I tried to teach him how to use a PC to no avail—the metaphors, the mouse and pointer, the levels of information, just shut him down. He could use a feature phone, so I bought him a smartphone last year, thinking that might be the on-ramp. Touch screen helped, but problems remain. It was hard to tap what he wanted despite adjustments, hard to read without filling the screen with to few words, hard to "tap," and it was all too much "newness" for someone who is dealing with some memory loss, a lower level of education and a complete blank when it comes to digital iterations over the past 20 years.
That is not to say my dad can't learn. When it comes to the analog world, he still manages fine. Get him around a pool table, for instance, when I am about to challenge his lifelong supremacy and watch him play defense until he frustrates me into a bad shot. Observe him break down a football game (which I did all last winter while he lived with us), watch him sell his pastor on installing a vending machine in the fellowship hall, listen to him strategize about said machine and it seems quite possible that the right tool could reliably get him online.
So when I read about the AARP's RealPad this fall, I saw a tough test for its use case and a possible solution for dad. RealPad states:
We want you to be able to jump in and enjoy your digital life right away. That’s why useful apps and educational content are preloaded — connect to Wi-Fi and you can browse the Internet and access email, a book reader, video chat, photo sharing, maps and more. Just tap your finger and go.
The reviews have been mixed. Huffington Post praised RealPad's ability to "allay most any fears that have prevented folks from getting up and running," while lilputing argues the only real reason to choose the $189 price tag is that, "that AARP offers 24/7 live customer support."
About three weeks ago, AARP shipped me a sample to test what HuffPo called "Technology for the Forgotten." My dad was, as always, a willing participant in the experiment and he unboxed the tablet easily, pretty impressed by the sleek and shiny black tablet. The dimensions (7.83" x 5.31" x .31") are comparable to an iPad mini (7.9" x 5.30" x .30"), which seemed comfortable for my dad to hold up. AARP does a nice job of going light on instructions and provides a good diagram that helped him find the power button fairly easy. Rather than offering a blow-by-blow, I am going to talk about a broader results.
I lean toward Huffington Post's side that RealPad is an advance for those who have been left behind thus far. Yes, in the end, RealPad is just an Android tablet. And, yes, as liliputing put it, 24/7 live service is something Amazon can compete with at a lower price. But what the RealPad seems to understand is that initial contact, and ongoing conversation, are crucial. The RealPad succeeds at this in several ways:
1) The first screen you get is not a command, it is a summary of what is about to happen.
2) Fairly early, a helpful slideshow maps the experience to come and the possibilities that await. It felt like human beings were on the other side of this design.
3) The lower screen navigation is large and noticeable without being clumsy. The pre-loaded apps are well-organized and logical inclusions.
4) The 24/7 help has a key advantage, because training focuses on needs similar to my dad's rather than any potential customer.
Mostly importantly, I could sense hope in my dad that this barrier was going to fall.
"How do you like it so far?" I asked, once we got to the home screen.
"I like it," he said, before ever actually doing anything with it. "I like it a lot."
He eventually got to his Broncos news, looked over Facebook (which will take some more lessons), used the camera and watched a few YouTube videos. For a man who has seen a lot in his life, he was pretty excited. Not because he and I had not navigated the Internet before, but because he was navigating it, alone.
This is not only an age issue, but it would still matter if it were. Access to the Internet in our culture has left the luxury phase and become an exigency. For many who face digital literacy barriers, isolation and underrepresentation are real. There are roadblocks in the RealPad (I talk about them below), but AARP has put serious effort behind finding the needs of forgotten users.
In watching him adjust to the RealPad, I might have been a helicopter child at times. Over-explaining wifi, being tempted to take the tablet back t0 "help," adjusting the touch sensitivity for him (he kept wanting to push instead of tap, which often activates a different set of commands). Finding that balance between guidance and freedom was something AARP had to consider too, says AARP Director of Corporate Affairs Anne Marie Kilgallon.
"We really had to play a fine balance of making sure it was simple and easy to use out of the box," Kilgallon says, "and making sure that the tablet could grow with them as they got better at using it."
Letting my dad use the RealPad on his own did, and probably would continue to, lead to successes. But it also led to frustrations. There are three major barriers I see the RealPad still struggling to overcome, some of which Kilgallon agreed with. What is interesting to me is these limitations speak to user experiences beyond the RealPad.
1) The device setup is still not intuitive enough.
Wi-Fi setup was a major road block. Just like most devices, the Wi-Fi location query came very early in the process, but it did not explain itself at all.
"Do you know what wifi is?" I asked.
"No."
RealPad does, Killagon pointed out, offer a guide around Wi-Fi. But that comes later. You skip Wi-Fi too, but the device makes it sound like a bad idea. At this point in the setup, Dad had little idea what we were even talking about.
You also need to set up a
"We will continue to work with Google to try to change that for AARP," Killagon says. "What I will tell you, though, is putting those instructions on the first page ... was a huge help for people."
Still, both of these issues are putting the cart of business demands before the horse of customer satisfaction. A tablet should work fine without Wi-Fi, at least at first. It should, at the very least, walk you through the concept and not scare you about skipping it. And a Google account? That should be the tenth thing a customer needs to worry about. (By the way, iPad is not much better.)
2) There is no standard for site accessibility. (UPDATE: See the comments below.)
My dad went looking for news and landed on two different sites. While one had clear tools for making text bigger, another had such small text and offered no such change abilities.
"I can't read this," my dad said and handed to me. It was almost like this was the roadblock that was going to end the relationship. I checked the site's settings, the tablet's settings, there seemed to be no solution. This should be standard by now, something AARP has the power to push for.
"We don't have control over that unfortunately," Killagon says, "but every site should allow you to control the size of the text. I know this is something AARP is working on with other sites, the issue of accessibility. How you pitch and zoom and how these things work."
3) The human interface must evolve.
One thing I liked about the RealPad was a home screen pre-loaded with smart options that were as easy to read and navigate as possible. So this barrier is more about generally usability—home screens in general are really a usability nightmare. It's a field of silos that have more to do with companies' needs to distinguish themselves than the user's needs to navigate and find what they want.
Paul Adams, vice president of Intercom and formerly of Google and Facebook, says a new kind of interface is coming, which is about systems, not destinations. He writes:
In a world of many different screens and devices, content needs to be broken down into atomic units so that it can work agnostic of the screen size or technology platform.
What comes to the screen is content you want, when you want it. Imagine if my dad were met with a series of questions about his interests. Do you like to follow the news? Yes. Do you prefer newspapers or television? Okay, both is fine. Which newspaper do you like to read? Which TV news station do you follow? Do you like sports? Which teams? From there, with the "cards" Adams and many others describe, comes an immediately customized experience where silos move to the background and serve the user what he or she really wants: Information, connection, agency.
AARP can, and should be, part of that movement. It seems they want that too, not to be on the cutting edge of technology, but on the side of the forgotten user. RealPad is an imperfect but laudable beginning in that movement. And it turns out other developers might learn a thing or two from it.
