[jfk13]

When the iPad appeared, I thought it'd be a great option for my elderly and non-computer-savvy father; but the whole touch-screen thing turns out not to work well for him. Shaky, rheumatic fingers too often trigger the wrong thing and throw him into some unexpected state; or a second (or third) finger inadvertently touches the screen and completely changes the behavior of the device.

I thought the direct-manipulation interface would work for him, but experience says that in his case a traditional mouse pointer and an explicit "click" action gives less trouble.

YMMV, of course.

[akeck]

We're in the same situation, but went with a pack of simple styluses instead of switching platforms. Working ok so far, arthritis definitely gets in the way of the iPad solution. That being said, we're definitely avoiding a pile of family tech support because of the iPad.

[hogFeast]

Ah, I can see you are real expert. I look after two elderly people, probably the biggest problem that they have is with applications that change state based on how you touch it. Even something as simple as picking up a call in Android is totally unintuitive (if anything, Android has got worse...tbh, I barely understand the incantations that one has to perform to do things on there now). Another big one is hidden menus, they don't understand that you have to click the burger for this hidden menu or that an arrow on the button means you can click through (Apple is actually better in how they structure menus).

I understand why these products have been designed this way but I don't think the people who make them understand how badly they are designed for some people. I am a web dev and, imo, a lot of this comes from ways to make your app "look cool" on mobile. Add some buttons, make your app a bit longer vertically...it isn't the end of the world.

I will say though, they find tablets far easier than computers. Tablets present a very simple interface of things to do. Computers seem more complicated (ironically, you see this with kids today even young adults in their early 20s...they have no idea how computers actually work, and often don't understand anything beyond...click this, and app opens). Both hate phones, they can use them but they feel uncomfortable using them.

On the OP, you just have to take stuff over. If you are paying bills or whatever, you should just do it yourself. It will save you time.