[antasvara]

I think the relationship people are seeing is "80 year old can't fill out my form, must be because they can't use a computer." But international surveys like PIAAC [0] indicate that adaptive problem solving is the real problem. 30 percent of adults are at or below Level 1; I've copied and pasted what that level represents below:

> Adults at this level are able to understand simple problems and develop and implement solutions to solve them. Problems contain a limited number of elements and little to no irrelevant information. Solutions at this level are simple and consist of a limited number of steps. Problems are embedded in a context that includes one or two sources of information and presents a single, explicitly defined goal.

This test is administered on a tablet, so I think scores can be interpreted as a sort of combo of computer use and problem solving.

A full 40% of adults from 55-64 are at that level or lower. Wikipedia thinks that a novel online form would be a Level 2 task, provided it involves navigating across more than 1 page. Based on that framework and assuming your dad can use the sort function in his email, he represents a top 20th percentile adult for the 55-64 age group. It's probably even higher considering his age as the trend is towards older groups having a rougher time with the survey.

I also think it's ageist to assume that older people can't use a computer. But assessments like this indicate that a full quarter of the US regardless of age would have trouble with some of the basic tasks we associate with computer use. So designers should consider their intended audience when deciding what's simple or not simple enough.

[0]: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/2023/national_results.asp

[Telaneo]

I'm curious how this lines up with US literacy rates. Is the group of people who can't navigate a two page online form the same as the one have reading comprehension skills on a 5th grade level or lower? Or do they at least largely overlap? In my experience they do, but it'd be nice to have confirmation.

I got taught in school to check whether or not the piece of paper we got with the test on it had something on both sides, so you didn't hand in a test that was only half done. I thought that went without saying back in the day, but given that filling out a two page form is a non-trivial task for what should be literate people, I guess it doesn't.

[antasvara]

Your intuition is largely correct. For any given level of adaptive problem solver, approximately 55% of those people share the same literacy level (i.e. a Level 1 adaptive problem solver is also a Level 1 for literacy around 55% of the time). 35% have a reading level that's 1 up from their problem solving ability, and around 10% have a literacy level 1 below their problem solving ability.