Is intuity a word? Can you guess what it means?
My mum, at almost 80, still uses a computer. However for her it's been a struggle at times because she doesn't find the interface natural, and if the icons for the things she wants to do aren't in the expected places or for some reason things appear different from usual then it can become unusable until it's reset.*
So anyway, she expressed an interest in an E-book reader recently, so last night I took her Chris's Kobo touch to try.
Now, it might have been because there was someone present to say 'do this, do that', but she seemed to find the interface quite natural, and the idea of swiping to turn pages obvious and comfortable. I wonder if, because of training and familiarity, more experienced computer users find it difficult to judge what an intuitive user interface really looks like, particularly to a user without previous experience.
I'd say that's pretty much sorted then, though we should go look at the Kindle too, just to see if it is more responsive. Lack of response is really the only significant flaw with the Kobo - it's just REALLY sluggish, especially when used directly in WiFi mode, to the point where that side of things is almost unusable except for updates. I have wondered about one of the Android tablets for her, since they are the same price, but it's back to that non-intuitive interface, and the LCD instead of e-paper screen which makes the Kobo & Kindle a much nicer reading experience. Better to do one thing very well than a dozen things tolerably.
* When I moved jobs in '97 I shared a PC with my boss for a while. Being completely comfy with W95 at the time I just naturally re-arranged the desktop to more efficiency, just like we all used to do on the shared machines in the previous company. I did not take into account the impact this might have had on her, and didn't understand at the time why she was not relaxed about it, but soon got the message it was not welcome. Live and learn, eh? It probably also accelerated the acquisition of my own PC, so at least it was not all bad.