Designing Senior-Friendly
Living, or Why Doesn’t My
Cable Work?
Jonathan Lazar

Towson University | [e-mail]

I like new technology, but I hate when it is forced on me. Even more so, I hate when new technology is forced on my grandparents, who are both 89 years old. I do everything that I can to help them out in their one-story home. I added motion detectors so that lights automatically go on and off. I added handrails in the hallways and grab bars in the bathroom. But I find it harder and harder to keep the technology simple in their house. As a professor of computer and information sciences,

I know how much technology can help us. I study usage of technology, but I still don’t like when new technology or “upgrades” are nonnegotiable.

A lot of HCI people get excited about the possibilities for new technologies as people get older. The baby boomer generation, as they age, will be more likely to be open-minded to adopting new technologies. I’m sure that in 25 years, people in their 90s will be using handheld computing devices. In the future, grandparents will email their grandchildren. However, I’m not interested in baby boomers or the future. I’m interested in helping my grandparents right now. My grandparents have never used a computer, never sent an email, and aren’t interested in doing so.

Comcast, one of two local cable TV providers, recently upgraded four of their channels from analog to digital, without telling any subscribers (I found this out after the fact, in the newspaper). For people with older TVs and no set-top box, suddenly, four channels didn’t work. So my grandparents did what any subscriber would do—they called Comcast. The representative said a technician would come out to look at the connection to see what was wrong. I was out of town at a conference, which I now regret. Instead, Comcast came out to install new set top boxes, which require new remote controls. Was this a bit misleading of

Comcast? They knew that it wasn’t a wiring problem, but didn’t tell my grandparents what they were going to do. Yes it was misleading, but I want to talk about usability, not misleading marketing.

My grandparents called me to say their TVs were no longer working. Technically, yes, they were working. However, they were impossible to use. The old setup was cable hooked up directly to TVs, and simple remote controls (which had only nine buttons, all of which were relatively large). No one at Comcast asked them if they wanted this change. No one from Comcast considered how these new remotes would impact on their TV-watching experience. I showed my grandparents how to use the new remote controls, but they said, “it’s too complicated, it’s not worth the bother.” It’s understandable: The new remotes are tough to use. There are too many buttons (more than 50), they are very small, and my grandparents can’t even read what some of the buttons say. To be honest, I at first had some trouble figuring out how to use the remotes.

So my grandparents stopped watching TV. When I heard that, I was disgusted (with Comcast, not my grandparents). I came back, unplugged the Comcast set-top boxes, and changed their TV setup back to what it was, minus the four channels that they cannot now receive. But at least they are watching TV again.

When the person from Comcast came back to pick up the set-top boxes that my grandparents were no longer using (p.s., they charged for the visit!), I asked him more questions about this change. He explained that customers in our county had gotten used to watching TV channels from both Baltimore and Washington, DC, and they shouldn’t have, because it’s hard for Comcast to support channels from both cities. He then explained that the set-top boxes in other counties are much easier to use.