simplest possible interface for sharing photos with an elderly parent?

June 3, 2015 8:49 PM

I'm looking to set up a way for my siblings and I to share photos with my elderly parents. My first thought was a shared flickr account - but I found that the interface had too many tiny clickable icons, and the photo thumbnails were also small. Parents are old, and have no built-in conception of the mouse as an input device, or tabs / folders / links / etc. as metaphors. But my dad successfully navigates the "smart" radio/cd changer in his 2015 model car, so I believe I can train him to wake up the computer, launch an app, and click on pictures. Parameters below...

Parameters:

1) simple viewing interface requiring no menu navigation, etc. Just pictures with captions. Defaulting to newest-first order is ideal.
2) some sort of phone app which multiple people can use to contribute. (email is o.k., too)
3) does not require photos to be accessible to the public, or mined by google.
4) parents' computer is an aging imac.
5) I hate Facebook.

posted by meeotch to Computers & Internet (18 answers total)

I recently set up gallery3 on a Linode virtual server. Here's a demo site. It takes some tech-fu to get it set up, but it meets most of those criteria, and another one that was important to me:

6) No user account required to view pictures

The interface isn't as simple as you want, but it's less complicated than other options. The upload-from-mobile condition might fail, though. I haven't tried that.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 9:03 PM on June 3, 2015

Ceiva is a frame that you can email pics directly to. I send pics to one, and the recipient loves it, but I have never seen it in person. Simple as can be, but maybe too expensive and maybe too few "photo management" capabilities?
posted by mahorn at 9:06 PM on June 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

Do your parents have any devices that can show photographs? Are any of these devices "smart"? connected to the internet? Or will you be purchasing all this?
posted by at at 9:21 PM on June 3, 2015

I use Tumblr for this. It seems to work well. My grandmother accesses it from her iPad. I only post one photo at a time, but I queue them to autopost at the same time every day, which means that Great-Grandma knows EXACTLY when she'll be able to get new pictures of her great-grandsons. I do one/day, because I'm the only one posting, but you could arrange it otherwise. I chose a very simple background/design, so literally you just scroll down the page to see all the pictures, one by one. I usually put captions under them. The people in my life who LOVE this, look forward to new pictures, etc., are all 60-90. Plus, there's a phone app. My spouse and I both post from our phones, with the same account.
posted by linettasky at 9:23 PM on June 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

Nixplay also has a photo frame that automatically downloads the pictures from their website. so you can mange the account yourself, uploading pictures etc. and you can also allow specified email addresses (e.g. other family members) to add pictures to the frame. If you are visiting their home, you can make it is all set up and working and then they don't need to do anything else.
posted by metahawk at 9:25 PM on June 3, 2015

I use Instagram to share pictures of my daughter with my elderly in-laws. Could you set up an account that everyone in your family has the password for and just use it amongst yourselves? The only people they follow are me and their daughters and once it was set up for them, they find it easy enough to use.
posted by Wantok at 9:26 PM on June 3, 2015

Would they like it if they had a web-enabled printer so you all could send the best photos to print out for them directly?
posted by Room 641-A at 9:32 PM on June 3, 2015

Response by poster: Thanks for the replies.

w.r.t. devices: the aging imac exists, and is internet connected. Nobody currently uses it. I've thought about a photoframe, or an ipad - but for now, I'd prefer to get it up and running on the existing hardware if possible.

w.r.t. gallery3: I am a programmer, and can feel my way through enough web stuff to set up a custom gallery on a self-hosted site. I've thought about using lightbox / whatever flash gallery and rolling my own... Though as you mentioned, this fails the phone app parameter #2 (without a fair amount of extra work).

tumblr may have a phone app that fits the bill, I don't know enough about the ecosystem. instagram almost certainly does - though maybe it fails the "not publicly accessible" parameter #3?
posted by meeotch at 10:04 PM on June 3, 2015

If you're looking for a reason to get a NAS, then you could try something like what Synology comes with. Photo Station is a service that does what you want that doesn't require any setup. Here's a writeup someone did that outlines the features.

You'll have:
- a private server, with ability to restrict access
- ability to upload photos from mobile

Your parents / others can:
- click a link, enter a password and get to viewing photos
- comment if they want
- upload photos from mobile (they have to connect to the service though)
posted by homesickness at 10:33 PM on June 3, 2015

Likewise I use Instagram with my mum. All she has to do is navigate to the web viewer and it's all there in chronological order with captions. All she has to do is click. Works well.

You can also make this a private account (or share one account for both posting and viewing).
posted by teststrip at 10:37 PM on June 3, 2015

For my mother my husband burns a slideshow to a DVD that she can simply pop into her player already connected to her tv and watch. She pauses on any she likes. She is however legally blind so had an even have time with tablets laptops etc. She also like it as we can throw in some video. We will also go the print things out and mail them route. I'll be watching this post with interest for alternatives, but these are the ways we found easiest for my mother.
posted by wwax at 5:01 AM on June 4, 2015

Aside from 'mined by google' you are basically describing the brand new Google Photos.
posted by Jairus at 6:20 AM on June 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

You could get them a tablet computer and then set their Pictures folder to sync with your Pictures folder via some private cloud storage service like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox etc. Put a shortcut to the Pictures folder on the Start menu screen and they should be good to go.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:27 AM on June 4, 2015

I think Instagram will fit your parameters nicely. You can set your account to "private" so that only people you approve can view your photos, and then only approve your parent to view the photos. Although the interface is probably easier/more intuitive on a phone, you can absolutely access and view on a computer pretty easily.
posted by rainbowbrite at 7:46 AM on June 4, 2015

I'm pretty sure you can only upload to instagram via a phone app, so if there's someone in your circle who does not have a smartphone, they're not able to participate.

I think tumblr is the best idea. You can pick a gallery theme with large photos and the captions underneath. By default, it shows the newest one first. People can upload through the app, through the website, or email the photos to a unique address. You can make it password-locked and/or keep it invisible from search engines. Advanced users can like (favorite) photos and view only those.

Caveat: everyone needs a tumblr account. I'm assuming you could set this up for them and set it to remember the password. Other people can use their own accounts and submit photos to the main one (except someone has to approve them) or they can be a pre-approved contributing author. I'm not sure if you can just email a picture to a tumblr if you don't have your own account.
posted by desjardins at 9:54 AM on June 4, 2015

Touchscreen tablet or laptop. A 10 inch or 12 inch version if you can swing that. 7 or 8 seems a bit small. May want to invest in a good case... in case they drop it.

Seniors should have no problems picking THAT up. Just show them a couple times, and turned up the fronts to max and make icons big.

If you use browser, you can put URL shortcuts on "desktop" and make sure the fonts and whatnot in browser are large enough. And install a remote support software so you can remote control them if things go wrong.

A cheap laptop like Chromebook that's 10-12 inches may be ideal... has a DVD drive so you can send them videos or photos / slideshows, get internet access if they want it, simple enough so you don't have to worry about virus, etc. etc. And they even have touchscreen versions.
posted by kschang at 2:14 PM on June 4, 2015

Seconding Ceiva - we've been sending family pics to 3 of them at grandparents houses for over 10 years now. They love it -sits on the kitchen counter, dials a local number every night to get pics, you can upload from a phone or ipad or computer or whatever.
posted by chr1sb0y at 6:04 PM on June 4, 2015

Response by poster: Thanks for the continued suggestions.

Instagram does seem to hit a lot of the required points - if indeed I can force the photos to be non-public. (I sort of dislike their way of forcing everything to be square, in the face of thousands of years of consensus on artistically pleasing aspect ratios, but...) And I'll have to investigate Tumblr further, since it sounds like it would take some configuring.

I tried Dropbox's "Carousel", and found it to be very close to what I wanted - but no captions, and a review I read claimed there was no way to stop it from uploading every photo you take. A dropbox-synced folder with the file browser as interface as suggested above is also pleasingly simple, but suffers from the same lack of captions. So close.

Google Photos seems to have a similarly clean interface. I was unclear whether you can just send single photos to it with captions... It seems to want to eat all of the photos on your phone, like Carousel? I'm definitely looking for a "push only" solution.

w.r.t. hardware: A NAS isn't going to happen at my dad's place (though I have rolled my own at home). I might graduate him to a tablet as some point, but for now, the ancient iMac they've already got is it.
posted by meeotch at 6:50 PM on June 4, 2015