Family members have gotten an Android tablet for my 97-year-old grandmother. Please suggest some ways to make the tablet as friendly and easy to use as possible for someone who has computer experience, but who can be pessimistic about learning new things and can get frustrated with people trying to teach her. We're particularly interested in tablet settings and also methods for instructing her in its use, but also open to hearing about tutorials or apps that might make her experience smoother. I'm overseas, so I'll be passing along ideas to my dad. My grandmother has been using a Windows desktop for email, web browsing, and some word-processing for many years, but lately it's been getting difficult for her to sit at the computer desk for very long. Her eyesight is not great, but she reads large-print books and has been able to see her monitor well enough by leaning in close. Her hand coordination can be a bit unsteady and she will accidentally click or double-click on things, usually without realizing that she has done so. Short-term memory is getting worse and changes to familiar things like her email client can throw her for a loop.
She has previously played with a piano keyboard app on an iPad and was quite absorbed by it. We think she'd like to do more of that kind of thing, as well as her usual computing activities. There will also be a bunch of family photos on the SD card for her to browse.
The tablet is a Lenovo IdeaTab A10-70 (aka A7600-F) running Android 4.4.2 (Kit Kat). From what I can tell, it doesn't have a physical HOME button, only soft keys.
We're especially interested in settings or learning techniques to do the following:
•Setting the virtual keyboard to resemble a physical keyboard as much as possible (e.g. not hiding punctuation)
•Making it easy to use her Gmail account, like (importantly) very simple ways to choose contacts for new messages, also a very basic app that doesn't allow her to accidentally swipe-to-delete emails
•Making the interface - icons and text - large enough for her to see easily.
•An easy way to find and browse photos, perhaps also using a slideshow
•A browser that supports an easy and intuitive way to access bookmarks and to enter search terms
•Avoiding accidentally launching apps or getting confused by accidentally pressing the menu soft key when holding the tablet (maybe using a stylus? Some kind of lap desk that the tablet can be attached to so she doesn't have to grip it?)
•General de-cluttering and getting confusing things out of sight
•Ways to ease her into it without causing her to feel pressured or getting frustrated and giving up
She has previously played with a piano keyboard app on an iPad and was quite absorbed by it. We think she'd like to do more of that kind of thing, as well as her usual computing activities. There will also be a bunch of family photos on the SD card for her to browse.
The tablet is a Lenovo IdeaTab A10-70 (aka A7600-F) running Android 4.4.2 (Kit Kat). From what I can tell, it doesn't have a physical HOME button, only soft keys.
We're especially interested in settings or learning techniques to do the following:
•Setting the virtual keyboard to resemble a physical keyboard as much as possible (e.g. not hiding punctuation)
•Making it easy to use her Gmail account, like (importantly) very simple ways to choose contacts for new messages, also a very basic app that doesn't allow her to accidentally swipe-to-delete emails
•Making the interface - icons and text - large enough for her to see easily.
•An easy way to find and browse photos, perhaps also using a slideshow
•A browser that supports an easy and intuitive way to access bookmarks and to enter search terms
•Avoiding accidentally launching apps or getting confused by accidentally pressing the menu soft key when holding the tablet (maybe using a stylus? Some kind of lap desk that the tablet can be attached to so she doesn't have to grip it?)
•General de-cluttering and getting confusing things out of sight
•Ways to ease her into it without causing her to feel pressured or getting frustrated and giving up