Original title: Over “optimizing” online banking - Elderly mistakes
A fancy online banking update has affected an elderly person I know. We can all get confused with online navigation updates, which we assume are well intended by the banks, can cause serious unintended errors. An 89 year old man I know got confused with a screen change caused by an update and clicked the wrong box and can’t remember what he did- but sees his account with negative numbers now!! One can say old people should have someone else pay their bills- but with how fast computers move and change- I think some of these pitfalls could be prevented by not overoptimizing our lives. I mean, how much Myers improved can we make everything. This will become dying marketing strategy at some point.
The convenience of all these fancy tech updates etc… is rendering a section of our population at risk for becoming less independent due to rapid changes in optimixation. Is it really necessary make a system better and more efficient and more streamlined than it already is?
I know changing user experirbce is used as a marketing tool- to have the most awesome streamlined experience, but is optimizing really optimal for all? We must examine this to technology humane for all who use it- including our senior elders.
I have moved your post to the Humane Design category, @healthyswimmer. I think you touch on an important subject here - that not only applies to Online Banking - and that is Accessibility of online services, and - in a broader perspective - Inclusiveness of technology.
Everything is moving to the digital realm, and people are expected to follow. Not only for the elderly, but also for people with disabilities, this can pose significant challenges. In our fast-moving world accessiblity of software systems is often neglected, or put in as an afterthought.
There are official standards for accessibility, like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Some governments require compliance with these standards for all their online services (I know the Dutch government does).
Besides accessibility special care needs to be put to the User interface (UI) and User experience (UX) to make navigating a UI intuitive and not prone to the errors you describe.
Topics to investigate further
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I’m trying to locate another thread I mentioned people with disabilities- namely marginally cognitively impaired in another topic- but I cannot find it. It might be good to link this as people were confused about why this is such an important issue- since the interest wasn’t there I dropped it.