

The User Is My Mom - scottyallen
http://theuserismymom.com

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m0th87
> You should design with your mother in mind

If you're a guy, you know those prototypical ads that show the incompetent
male who can't fix something/clean properly/file taxes, and then the
wife/girlfriend shows up and saves the day?

I imagine this meme of the incompetent mother who doesn't understand computers
must feel the same way for women.

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nmc
Agreed (not sure about your parallel with those ads, though). From the FAQ:

> _We 're accepting suggestions for future moms to work with, so we can review
> more sites_

This is just baffling. Could it be more sexist?

~~~
nmc
Looks like this comment is being disliked.

Would anyone please provide criticism so I can improve on my future comments?

* * *

As to what I meant and may have been unclear: the authors are making an
implicit equivalency between:

• people who will struggle to understand a website

• mothers of website makers

This is, to me, blatantly sexist — at least until they extend it to "parents
of website makers".

~~~
dijit
Jesus Christ.

it's a parable, he means "older people", why is it, when it's a guy it's ok
but if it's a woman it's sexist.

sure, his words could be "parent" but:

1) it doesn't flow

2) it's something everyone can relate to

3) we're from a generation of the largest number of single parents (which are
mostly women)

4) it's an adorable method of wording, not a derogatory one.

for the love of god can people stop harping on about sexism, sexism exists and
you just hurt the cause when -every- time soemone says "woman" you just jump
to the defensive and start slandering everyone.

Don't assume malice, your life will be easier.

------
ryannevius
> She yells at her computer, doesn't know what a twitter is, and struggles to
> find windows she's minimized.

> You should design with your mother in mind. If she can't understand your
> site, others will struggle as well.

I'm not sure your mother represents the average user, and likely does not fit
the target demographic of most web sites/applications.

Maybe I'm missing something...but how is this useful? I get that we should all
design for actual people. But most of the time, "most people" (and perhaps
more importantly, most paying customers) aren't going to be your mom (or
people like her).

~~~
aidos
I guess it's about having someone who's going to stumble over the details that
many of us would miss (because we have so much knowledge).

I watched a bit of their twitter demo and it was actually pretty entertaining.
During the account creation process it suggested potential usernames like
'pam18773642' and she said, "how the hell would I _ever_ remember all those
numbers?" Once she'd picked a name it wasn't obvious that it was valid.

I agree, you need to know who your target audience are and test for them.
Still, it's enlightening to see the web through the eyes of someone with very
little experience.

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theg2
This is starting to cross the border beyond a fun idea you want to share and
just slightly changing your business model and pimping HackerNews for
publicity (again).

------
dbg31415
A service that is desperately needed.

Ever try and get your grandparents to use an iPad? Your grandparents defeated
the Nazis, they're pretty fucking awesome people. And then you have to humble
them with some stupid, ""Swipe up to get to the settings..." They're like,
"Why can't we just have a button?" And they're right.

Too much design today relies on gestures that make no sense. Font sizes are
way too small / don't scale / weren't tested with large fonts. Integration
with services that not everyone has heard of. Thumb readers that don't even
work for elderly users. It's all gotten a bit out of hand.

In any event, this is a good way to validate the complexity, and get ideas on
where your marketing / education materials are weak.

Hiring the elderly for QA is a great idea.

