[HN Gopher] I spent a year building an Android course for the el...
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I spent a year building an Android course for the elderly
Author : kcsaba2
Score : 55 points
Date : 2024-12-05 19:24 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (kopiascsaba.hu)
(TXT) w3m dump (kopiascsaba.hu)
| kcsaba2 wrote:
| Teaching tech to elderly people is hard--many struggle with
| gestures, apps, or even turning their phones on. I built a course
| from scratch, covering every step from unboxing to apps. Along
| the way, I learned about video production, Android's quirks, and
| marketing struggles.
| avg_dev wrote:
| thanks,
|
| here are a couple of links to the course:
|
| https://smartphonehowto.com/gift/ - "Save time & help your
| loved ones" - for people who might want to introduce this
| course to someone they know
|
| https://smartphonehowto.com/ - "Stay connected with family and
| friends" - for people who might want to take this course
| RankingMember wrote:
| I love how exhaustive your approach to documentation is here,
| because (like you said) it really does need to be to be truly
| useful. If the user doesn't know how to get to "Contacts", saying
| "Start by opening Contacts" does them no good and just
| discourages them.
| kcsaba2 wrote:
| Thank you for your kind words!
| quasse wrote:
| Did you test your course on any elderly people as you were
| developing it? What did you learn from that, if so? Did it
| require changes that were surprising?
| kcsaba2 wrote:
| I wanted to:) And you know what the funny thing is, if i give
| the course for free, no-one watches it.
|
| I did reach out to several people in my friendship, gave them
| free the course just to get feedback. None of them watched it,
| so thats very, very surprising for me. Maybe i should go up to
| random strangers and PAY THEM in order to give them something
| that would benefit them - and maybe get some feedback:))
|
| But on the other hand, I've got very lovely reviews on udemy,
| so apparently those who find it love it and thats very
| encouraging.
| lucb1e wrote:
| > Maybe i should go up to random strangers and PAY THEM in
| order to give them something that would benefit them
|
| It is pretty normal to compensate people for their time in my
| limited experience (both as subject and from what I hear
| about user testing). Usually it's a pretty small amount, not
| like a normal salary but a bit more than a cup of coffee for
| maybe 30-45 minutes of their time (assuming they don't have
| to travel to you in addition). They are helping you create a
| commercial product, it is not weird to do something in
| return, although I understand also what you're saying about
| how they might benefit from it themselves
|
| Perhaps you could do a small amount, say (the equivalent cost
| of) a good cup of coffee, plus a free copy of the course so
| they can use it themselves and show some others? That spreads
| the word in addition to them feeling compensated
|
| I'm not a marketing expert though, just going off of what I
| hear and experienced from other companies
| stuckkeys wrote:
| WHAT?!?!
| simlan wrote:
| Awesome. I recently had similar thoughts and then I was
| considering all the variations in the android eco system. Lots of
| times when I am helping I have to just rely ony intuition because
| I am not familiar with the specific flavour of android used by
| Samsung or whatever else sonone might have.
|
| I will have a look at your material. Maybe I can localize it to
| my needs.
| kcsaba2 wrote:
| Thank you so much, I would really appreciate any feedback about
| that!
| evanjrowley wrote:
| This is fantastic. I can think of a handful of people who I'd
| recommend this course for.
|
| I have a question about something I noticed in "Preview of 03.07.
| Finding & launching apps" - In this lesson, what you refer to as
| the "desktop" is something I typically refer to as "home screen"
| - Is "desktop" really the preferred way to describe that screen?
| kcsaba2 wrote:
| Thank you, it's an honor you think that!
|
| I don't know of any higher authority on what to call it
| actually. Technically that "app" (it is an android app just
| like any other) is called a launcher, i went with desktop, but
| I also like home screen, and I think I probably use these terms
| interchangeably in the course.
|
| (You actually can install a different launcher if you are not
| happy with yours.)
| lucb1e wrote:
| > i went with desktop, but I also like home screen, and I
| think I probably use these terms interchangeably
|
| This might be best to have be configurable, so that I can
| pick what a family member already knows
|
| Some people have previously used a computer professionally
| and know what a desktop is, so for them it's fine to use the
| word (my dad would be one of those). Others have more
| smartphone experience and I think I use the words home screen
| (my mom I think) and start screen (my grandma). It's like you
| mention a word and see how they react to it: do they get what
| concept you're referring to from the word's components? Do
| they repeat it back to you later, did it stick, or do they at
| least understand it the next time you say it? When you ask
| "what screen do you get when you turn the device on", what
| word do they use? I base my wording on things like that, so
| it's not just region- or family-specific but even person-
| specific, in my experience
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| To clarify: this is how to use the phone, the Android OS. Not
| develop for Android.
| kcsaba2 wrote:
| Yes, yes, yes! I even talk about how hard it is to distinguish
| between these two things. Even as a user who just want to learn
| how to use it, kind of hopeless to find something amongst the
| dev articles/tutorials.
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