I am getting a lot of ideas on how to make Neo app better from seeing how my mom struggles with the app.
One point of friction I saw today is the text size in the bottom navigation bar that is much smaller than the text size in the rest of the app.
The problem is that the text is just too small to read if you don’t have perfect vision. She would have to read the text to understand what to do with the app.
I tried making the text size larger in settings → accessibility (iphone) for apps that support dynamic type, but that does not affect the navigation bar. Instead, it makes the text that is already large enough even larger.
I don’t see an obvious and elegant solution to this problem.
Wealthsimple doesn’t have text under icons in the navigation bar. Their approach is to eliminate the text so there is nothing to read. The problem with that approach is that someone who doesn’t know what the icons mean would struggle even if they don’t have to read anything. Having microscopic text means the user can get glasses and understand it; if the there is no text, some users would try to click on different buttons to see what happens, but this only works if they are accustomed to do so. A likely outcome in both situations is that the user who struggles with the app will ask for help those who know how to use it or discontinue using the app.
(This is why seniors go to bank branches and stand in line instead of using apps. If you want them to switch to digital-first solutions, those solutions have to be designed in a way that allows the target user to use them.)
Another example is an app like Kijiji where dynamic text applies to navigation bar. The problem with this solution is that making it larger in system settings will produce a large but botched text that doesn’t fit anywhere well, breaks down and looks like 
.
Ideally, there would be one obvious button that users can press and get the app to produce any result they want. Think Siri that actually works. You would be able to just tell the app to read your account balance, ask the app to send or request money and do whatever else is needed.
In the meantime, I would like to encourage thinking beyond individual visual elements. Why does the user want to read the navigation button titles? Because they don’t know which button to press. The question is, why do they have to press the button in the first place? Why can’t everything that most users need be on the one screen that is the main, default screen?
Consider the payments tab that is a separate tap for essentially one function, money transfer (send/receive/pay bill). Wouldn’t you want a payments app have payments function on the main screen?
The main screen has a lot of junk that I don’t need. As much as I like “Welcome, Paul”, I’d much rather have everything I need on the first screen instead.
