Re: Tech Writing for Seniors

Subject: Re: Tech Writing for Seniors
From: Janet Myers <myers032 -at- tc -dot- umn -dot- edu>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 08:16:38 -0500


Timothy,
Thanks for the story and the suggestions for the CD player. My 86 yo mother
flew into the 21st century by getting a CD player, cell phone, e-mail device
and cable TV all within about 3 months. I spent most of the Christmas-New
Year's holiday helping her with the e-mail device. The experience reminded
me of one of those repetitive songs like the 12 Days of Christmas: On the
first day we logged on. On the second day, we logged on and sent a message.
On the third day we logged on, sent a message and received a message. And so
on. I'll be visiting her next week (she's two states away) and know that
we're in for a refresher course.
In the meantime, I'm also working on a project for which I'll be writing
guides (possibly on-line) for a home assistance system. The guides for the
caretakers (social workers, home-health aides, family members) and for the
techies that configure the system should be easy. The guide for seniors has
me baffled and I've found very little on the internet that speaks to this.
My best hope is that the final interface will be absolutely intuitive and
won't require help at all.

On the Web, I found good examples of tutorials that I think would be
acceptable to seniors at Aunt Ellen Learning Systems
http://www.auntellen.com/default.htm but doubt that I'll I have the luxury
of creating anything close to that for this product.

I'd be grateful to hear of any good senior-biased training material.
Janet Myers
myers032 -at- tc -dot- umn -dot- edu

"Trese, Timothy G." wrote:

> My grandmother is a wonderful woman of 88 years, charming and lovable.
> Though her mental acuity is somewhat in decline, she still enjoys living
> by herself, and does very well in most respects. Technology has never been
>
> her strong suit, however, and she's frequently flustered, as many of us
> are,
> by the increasing complexity of her home appliances. A year ago Christmas,
>
> I bought her a little stereo for her apartment. That's when the trouble
> started.
> ...We went through weekly iterations before it dawned on me that I
> might turn my work as a professional technical writer to good advantage,
> and design a little quick-reference sheet for her.
>
> Sorry to say that the quick-reference was only marginally effective.
> ...
> After some brainstorming, I went to the office supply store and got some
> colored adhesive circles. These I numbered and adhered to the buttons on
> the stereo, showing the exact order in which to press the buttons. I taped
> a
> key on top of the stereo: the red numbered stickers for radio, blue for
> CD,
> and yellow for tape. As an extra measure, I even put blue circles on the
> CD
> jewel cases, and yellow ones on the cassette cases.
>
> That seemed to do the trick...



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