I always get a kick out of seeing how people interact with their mobile devices. I was reading this post on how users hold mobile devices, and it seems to align with what I’ve seen.

Later today, I saw someone using a Galaxy Note for the first time in the wild. And not just any ol’ person. It was an old person. As ageist as it sounds, watching old people interact with mobile devices is right up there when it comes to kicks.

This elderly woman sat next to me in a movie theatre, pulled out her gigantic Note, and began reading through some text messages that people ten rows back could probably see, what with the insanely blown up font size and all.

A reality check that those pixel perfect designs that are laid out perfectly—just fitting when some text is dropped to 12 pt (the, uh, “minimum legible” size, apparently)—are inevitably going to overflow and look a little crappy for some.

I’ve never really thought about or tested how this will impact an app. Running through a bunch of my frequently used apps now with the font size set to Huge, I’m surprised how well things hold up.

Back to the elderly woman. She then pulled out the stylus, using it to type via Swype (!), searching for something on Google. There was no reception in the theatre, but I doubt she had any idea that the phone had no reception, nor what the “Network connection” error dialog that kept popping up meant. She kept trying the search until the film started.

Old people do the darnedest things on mobile devices!

She yawned incessantly throughout the film. I wanted to stab her with that stylus of hers.