Takeaways for keeping interface designs friendly and usable to the most important person I know. My mother.

It happens about once or twice a year. I travel over to my mother’s house for a visit and, about two or three hours in, she says something like “Hey, can you take a look at my computer? I just want to make sure everything is okay with it. You know I don’t know what I’m doing.” She’s right. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.

She wants to, though.

And that’s what brings her and millions of people like her to the websites we create every day. They fumble frustratedly through signup forms, hidden gestures, and confusing interfaces. …