Tech Support
day to day care with Kathy Jaller
Xiaowei: What brought you to the Collective Action School space?
Kathy: I found out about Collective Action School through the Center for Humane Technology, and I recently finished the CHT course. I thought it would be nice to meet other folks who were grappling with some of the same questions that I was. I had been missing some of that in my day job. I wanted to dig a little deeper and be together with thoughtful people. I love a cohort.
Xiaowei: We were lucky you were part of the cohort! Can you talk a little about your final project?
Kathy: I’m the kind of person—and I feel like many of the folks in the cohort were similar—that always has a couple of project ideas at the same time, like little satellites around my consciousness. My first introduction to tech was through digital engagement for cultural organizations, but my final project is more about the basic needs of daily life.
My mom recently retired and came to live with me and help out with my small child. I saw up close what life looks like for her at this point in her life, and noticed how many tech questions would come up. It’s not unusual, it’s a pretty common punchline, even. But I started to think more deeply about it because I saw how much she struggled to access things that promised to make her life better but actually made her feel frustrated and like she just wasn’t getting it. That something was wrong with her.
It broke my heart to see her so upset so often. As a tech worker, I felt somewhat responsible. We should be helping folks, not getting between them and self-sufficiency. Take paying bills, for example. Financial interactions online are incredibly high stakes and often very difficult to navigate. And, as my mom would say, increasingly without real human support. How can you live an independent adult life if you can’t do this easily?
If she thought something didn’t make sense, she always had a point. If she said “but this doesn’t make any sense,” I’d usually think “you’re right, it doesn’t.” She’s really good at finding design flaws. It made me wonder— how many of us are having these conversations with their parents? How many hours are we putting into guiding them? What other connection could we have been having during that time? How are we all being liberated or limited, and at what point does ubiquity instead of utility keep us locked into these systems? And what is the cumulative cost of all these technology-induced experiences of self-doubt, anxiety, and even fear?
So my project became putting a new lens on this experience I was having, and learning from the accessibility experts at work to put some pieces together between my work and personal life. I was familiar with accessibility considerations like using alt text for screen readers, but there are also design principles for people with cognitive and learning challenges. And many of those happened to be just good design principles. Things like using recognition instead of recall to help people answer questions. It was a new way of thinking about usability for me.
I want to create some resources for others in my situation. For example, sharing information on the best designed password keepers. Setting up notifications in a way that prompt but don’t overwhelm or distract. But I think my project is actually the day to day care that’s part of my life now. That’s the theme of this season of life that’s focused on caregiving— learning and paying attention to understand what people actually need to live and thrive.
What I really appreciated about Collective Action School is that there was such flexibility about what a project is, and openness and respect for the labor of care. CAS allowed me to more fully appreciate this labor at the personal and societal level.
Xiaowei: I appreciate everything you just said. I’m wondering if you have more examples of ways that your mom’s relationship to technology might have changed or become different?
Kathy: Recently she mentioned that she missed music and that it would be a source of pleasure and comfort. We have a Spotify account, which has the easiest integration with her iPhone. But she think in albums, and access to infinite options is not what she was after. Album covers can trigger memories, and breaks the music down into themed (and designed) segments associated with different years and life stages. So we had to workshop that a bit. It’s really good for me as a UX writer to notice all the layers of abstraction in an experience like that which we might take for granted. I’ve learned so much this way.
One topic of consistent frustration are required software updates. My mom is a perfectionist and completist who will dutifully go to the Genius Bar or local library to learn how to do something. Then, a software update happens and everything looks different or moves around, or gets nested inside something else. And sometimes it seems like it’s for novelty, not for making it better. I have learned to muddle through these updates and just figure out what I need and ignore the rest. I realize I have a high error tolerance and don’t internalize my “mistakes” the way she does because she has a greater expectation of permanence in the tools she uses, and reward for mastery.
Xiaowei: Totally, it’s like we do all these things that make life harder for users but end up generating shareholder value. Before we wrap up, is there anything you want to add for the record?
Kathy: We were asked what our wildest dreams are for our project. I think it would be for this moment in time to be one of increased thoughtfulness around how to make sure technology empowers elders to live full and independent lives for as long as possible. Many millennials like myself are caring for aging parents and children at the same time, and are thinking about how these two populations have specific digital needs. And we are also likely to be in positions of power and influence in business. We don’t want to see the people we love struggle. We want them to make the most of the opportunities of the age we’re in. And we want them to know that it’s probably not them, it’s the design. Products are supposed to serve people, not the other way around.