p2pnet - rss feed: Silver surfing
p2p news / p2pnet: In Geoffrey Chaucer’s England people liked to go on pilgrimages in April when the spring buds were bursting through thanks to the ‘showres soote’.
But the people who organise awards ceremonies seem to prefer the autumn, at least if my recent experience is anything to go by. Perhaps it’s because it seems like a good idea to be indoors watching plaques get handed out on cold evenings when the rain is anything but sweet.
So earlier this month we were treated to the BT Digital Music Awards, and of course we’ve just had both the Nobel Prize announcements and the keenly contested Ig Nobel awards for apparently pointless scientific research.
One of this years papers was for an experiment in how fast tar drips that has been going since 1927.
This year I’m directly involved in two award ceremonies. I was asked to speak at last week’s Silver Surfer of the Year event and I’ll actually be handing out the statuettes this week when the UK chapter of the Usability Professionals’ Association gives out awards as part of World Usability Day.
The Silver Surfers awards have been going since 2001 and recognise the growing use of the internet by older people.
You start being a ‘silver’ surfer at fifty, so I’m rapidly getting there myself, and since my beard is already mostly white I suspect that a few members of the audience thought that I was already among their number.
The ceremony was held at Portcullis House, just next to the House of Commons, and around one hundred people came along to see Graham, Stuart and the other winners receive their awards from Derek Wyatt MP.
Graham is using a website to tell people about prostate cancer, which he was diagnosed with in 2004. He started an online diary about his experiences and treatment, largely so that friends and family could know what was happening, and it has become the basis of a larger site offering information and support to others.
It’s an excellent website, but it’s clear that Graham has had to struggle with the technology to create and maintain it, and I couldn’t help wonder what he could have achieved if the tools available had been better and simpler.
While the Silver Surfer awards are there to acknowledge and applaud what the winners have done, the real point is to raise awareness and encourage others to get online.
Although the number of people over 50 using the web is increasing along with the general population – and government statistics show that the proportion ages 55-64 is actually growing faster than any other – many of these people need help and encouragement once they do get online.
Pointing out that your ability to engage with technology and do cool stuff doesn’t disappear once you’re out of your forties has got to be a good thing. It certainly reassures me.
It’s the same with the usability awards. Handing out prizes for the most usable e-commerce website or the best consumer electronic device isn’t just about rewarding good design and consideration for users.
The awards provide an excuse to talk about the ways that most sites, computers and consumer goods let their users down, and perhaps make the designers and developers feel just a little bit guilty about the shoddiness of much of their work.
At least, that’s the idea.
It would be nice to think that designers from Apple, Microsoft and Google were anxiously awaiting Thursday’s announcement, but I rather doubt it. Raising awareness takes time, and it is only the constant drip.. drip.. of adverse comment, public criticism that will have an impact.
But in the discussion at the Silver Surfers awards we did come up with one way that pressure could be put on product designers and software developers. The over 50’s may not be a major market segment for shiny new consumer technologies, but they do have a direct line through to the heart of the computing industry – through their children or grandchildren.
If everyone with a son or daughter (or grandson or granddaughter) working for a web designer put a note in their birthday card to say ‘and why don’t you think about old people like me when you’re designing your software’ then it might just make them think again when they build a site with tiny fonts, miniscule icons and no accessibility aids.
And then we could see what people like Graham can come up with when the tools available to them support and sustain their creativity instead of getting in the way.
Bill Thompson - andfinally.com
[Thompson is a UK-based writer and broadcaster.]
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