It seems a bit unfair to expect an app to work without being able to read the language. Was the translation bad or are you just saying that the buttons weren't obvious without a description you could read?
I disagree that it's unfair to expect apps to work without reading. Some apps, sure, but I think a taxi application ought to be usable without being able to read. Consider
1. The user is drunk, and can't understand meaning of the text.
2. The user is preoccupied with other tasks, and skips over the words.
3. The user is illiterate. Functional illiteracy is prevalent in the United States, and being unable to recognize the characters of one's own language continues in many countries, too
My company invests in ensuring many of their products are usable for the illiterate. I doubt it's the only company that does so.
Designing for the illiterate (or inebriated) is a nice goal, but designing for people to change their app into a language they cannot read, and then expecting it to all be easily usable, is not really a particularly great design goal. In that instance, a button could have a single word that 99.9% of people can read, but if you've changed it to Spanish it may render the button incomprehensible. I personally can't think of a single app I use that is completely usable without basic reading comprehension. I'd be curious about examples though (assuming reasonable complexity) because it'd be some potentially useful design that I'd be interested in seeing (and potentially using).
Adding to this, I'm curious how someone who cannot recognise the characters of their languages would use input fields, too? I don't think I know of many input fields which are particularly accessible if one doesn't recognise language characters without using speech recognition (which kind of sidesteps the issue).
As a (hypothetical) example, I'd imagine a pizza app to be pretty usable if I didn't speak the language (illiterate may be a bit much as I'd need to know my address):
Put in my postcode & choose my address; choose a pizza size & toppings from icons/photos.
Add credit card info into a standard looking form & that's it (or even, touch the fingerprint sensor when the fingerprint icon comes up)
I think the trouble isn't that you wouldn't know the Spanish for "OK" (or "pepperoni") but if the app lacks proper information hierarchy so you don't know what to do next.
If you're a foreigner you would probably be tripped by the post code/address. I certainly was when the petrol station asked for my post code in the US! (My card postcode does not fit the US format.)
Source: used to work for a direct Uber competitor (not in the US)
Drivers and platforms definitely don't want too intoxicated passengers. Reasonably drunk? Sure. Completely high/passed out/etc? Nope. It's just too much of a mess to handle. There is indeed a vomiting fee, but it's more used as a deterrent for the users: it does not cover the actual cleaning + lost rides on a busy Saturday night...
Bit of anecdata: sexual intercourse in the car is also not ok, and gets you banned. Yes, it happens. Drivers don't like it.
Ironically, part of the reason traditional taxi networks enjoyed their local monopolies in many cities was to compensate them for being considered part of public transport infrastructure, and forced to do the things that's not in their best interest (but is in the best interest of citizens).
How do you understand something like 'withdraw, with conversion' or 'withdraw, let your bank handle the conversion', without language? Is there an obvious image or button shape that'd signify this without prior knowledge? Curious, not sure I've seen an instance where this is obvious from any other cue.
To expand on this: the mapping between images and other cues to a precise meaning is often actually pretty poor. To correctly navigate using images you often have to have prior knowledge, with the exception of the most downright obvious images or visual cues possible. On the other hand, text can have essentially arbitrary precision (although past a certain point it becomes difficult to parse) - and is thus actually often superior for first-use (or infrequent use) scenarios. The ideal is to have the best communication possible, and while I'm not sure as to the extent that Uber reaches that goal, text being unreadable and the app being unnavigable because you changed the language is, in my view, more on you than on the app developers.
> How do you understand something like 'withdraw, with conversion' or 'withdraw, let your bank handle the conversion', without language? Is there an obvious image or button shape that'd signify this without prior knowledge?
Let's say you're in Europe and and have a card in dollars:
Right. Because you have numbers written in a common language, you can work out what your buttons did. Without that you wouldn't realise until you actually were hit with the conversion fee on one side or the other. If you changed the language and the numbers were written in Chinese, and then you blamed the ATM for being difficult to use without a translation app, how on earth is that not a problem with what you decided to do?
For that example, I'd say the text wouldn't help most people regardless of language. One would have to know a fair bit about the mechanics of currency conversion. I happen to know that, and I still would have to pick randomly, because this would come down to exchange rates that the interface isn't exposing.
The correct user-focused interface solution for that particular problem is to show the actual costs next to each button. And then I'd think one would make the cheaper option the obvious default (e.g., bigger, greener), with the more expensive option less favored.
1. The user is drunk, and can't understand meaning of the text.
2. The user is preoccupied with other tasks, and skips over the words.
3. The user is illiterate. Functional illiteracy is prevalent in the United States, and being unable to recognize the characters of one's own language continues in many countries, too
My company invests in ensuring many of their products are usable for the illiterate. I doubt it's the only company that does so.