5 ms·

Computers shouldn't make people feel like idiots

88 points by fogus 17y ago

megamark16 17y ago
As with most things, which side you're on isn't as important as the fact that you're having the discussion. I'm excited to see what Apple's competitors come back with to combat the seeming ease of use and simple interface that the iPad is bringing to market. I'm not a big fan of Apple products, but I'm a huge fan of driving innovation...so I guess I am a big fan of Apple as a company :-)
decavolt 17y ago
Stop Being An Idiot - http://orderedlist.com/our-writing/blog/articles/stop-being-an-idiot/ http://orderedlist.com/our-writing/blog/articles/stop-being-... "Our job, when designing features and interfaces, is to make them powerful, usable, and understandable. Not to cater to those people too lazy to think. Our job is to make things intuitive. But intuition still requires an individual to want to understand something. It requires an attempt to understand. It requires thought, even subconsciously. We have little power over people’s desire to succeed. We can only provide the tools to do so. So teach people, don’t criticize them."
- tdoggette 17y ago
  It's hard for gentle pushing from software design to overcome years of learned helplessness.
  - lurkinggrue 17y ago
    Around 92 I was forced into a required class for basic computers. I didn't pay much attention, but got A's as it was covering topics I already knew well. What I did learn from that class was from the students as I noticed many were just downright afrid of the machines and would only do what the teacher said. There was no sense of play and the fear of "Blowing something up" was always there and I wondered how anybody could learn with that kind of fear. I can understand getting frustrated but fear of the machine was baffling but I got a good glimpse on how "regular" people reacted to technology.
    - cracell 17y ago
      When I was about 9 or so I became extremely interesting in computers. I wasn't afraid of them....and I broke them over and over usually to the dismay of my family. Now I know how to do advanced things properly...but computers are very fragile and easy to break. This has to change for normal users, the Applet Tablet and Chrome OS are steps in that direction. People want stable machines that never break no matter what they do. Once we actually get to that point, maybe people will stop being so afraid but we aren't there, their fear comes from experience of things breaking on them.
      - rayboyd 17y ago
        Sounds exactly like me. When I was 10 I dismantled my ZX81 to 'see how it worked' and broke it of course. I then got a ZX Spectrum to keep me from crying about it which I also ended up taking apart, but managed not to break. I think I conditioned everyone in my family to be more afraid of letting me near electronic equipment with a screwdriver than the equipment itself.
    - pyre 17y ago
      There will always be people like that. My grandmother used to live with us as I was growing up, and she was always afraid of technology. She was afraid to touch the electronic thermostat... even though it only had two buttons and just displayed the set temp and the current temp. She was deathly afraid that she would 'break' it. {edit} On the other hand, you also have people that constantly break things as a result of their own actions, and refuse to change. My friend's sister would be constantly corrupting her external hard drive because she would just yank the plug to remove her laptop from her desk. My friend would fix things and repeatedly tell her not to do that, but it would always happen again. People are all over the spectrum. There are people that are just downright afraid of new things, and there are people that just take everything for granted (not caring what the consequences of their actions are).
      - bshep 17y ago
        My grandmother was always afraid that if you changed the channels on the tv too fast it would break the tv. To this day she's afraid of turning off the tv, she fears it wont turn back on.
  - pwhelan 17y ago
    Is it learned helplessness or learned laziness? My mother can speak 5 different languages but "needed" me to show her how find her "My Documents" after she downloaded email attachments for years. It was amazing how after I stopped helping her with everything immediately ("Ma, I've got to finish this homework" is a remarkably effective retort) that she put in the effort to understand how to use this tool for her purposes. I think more than anything there just hasn't been a good enough effort to help people get up the first part of the learning curve as they often have no idea where to start and people haven't been taught how to protect themselves, etc. I agree with the earlier post that software designers have to want to make things simple, but people have to want to learn how to use it.
willNotCompile 17y ago
Somehow I don't think that learning how to operate a unique proprietary user interface(iPad) will help people to operate a real desktop computer. While it may temporary help to boost users self confidence in using a computer it will only serve as a fallback after the inevetable frustrations with a full UI. What is realy apsent from the mind of older generations is the idea that computers are just tools, albeit imensly powerfull ones, and as with all tools we need time and especially motivation to learn how to use them. Personally, I don't give a damm how my car works but I had to learn how to use it to get form one place to another and it would certainly be much harder to do it if every other car had a radically diferent set of controlls.
- halostatue 17y ago
  Apple is training people how to use the next generation of computers with their language. Because no one else has had the guts to do what Apple is doing, they are ceding the opportunity to define that language.
- Skriticos 17y ago
  A bit wrong of a comparison. A car is a tool, and can get dangerous, which is why it has this strict interface and education rules. Computer usage is more like math. It's something you just need, part of every day life, though many people still hate it, as it is more flexible. GUI's really share similar concepts, you just have to adapt them, and if people hate one word, than it's adapt - seriously hate. You really have time to figure out how things work and GUI's are really no rocket science to figure out. Nobody expects users to become system administrators or application developers, but answering questions about self explaining clickable graphical elements is very painful. (With a little endurance you could probably get a chimpanzee to understand most of our 'modern' UI's).
- asmosoinio 17y ago
  But why would all these people need a "real desktop computer"? People need to read their emails, browse their facebooks, store and browse their images... And most of them will get all this done easier with a simpler device than a "real" computer.
- 17y ago
dkimball 17y ago
One problem that I don't think the iPad's defenders are acknowledging is Joel Splosky's "Law of Leaky Abstractions" -- http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.htm... . Of course, the ideal is to leak minimally; Apple has always been good at that, but very bad at allowing anyone past the abstraction in the event that it breaks down. I believe the analogy is "sports cars with their hoods welded shut."
- glhaynes 17y ago
  In what ways do you expect the iPad to have problems with this?
themanr 17y ago
I don't think many people who have grown up using computers struggle with basic file system concepts, installing programs or using office applications. Maybe we have reached the stage where a basic understanding of computing, along with basic numeracy and literacy, is necessary to function in modern society?
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- glhaynes 17y ago
  I don't find this to be the case. Very very few non-techy people I know (young or old) have a decent grasp of the file system, enough to have any confidence in using it beyond dumping a few files into a folder, if even that. People who use computers all day long in an office setting have issues with it. Kids who use "Internet stuff" all day have issues, too -- because they never have to deal with it, normally.
- jbrun 17y ago
  I completely disagree. Ask a non-techie friend to send you the full resolution photos from a recent weekend. Good luck. Despite the fact that it is easy to zip them, and send them by email or via a service like Yousendit.com - they cannot do it. People have very little understanding of file systems, files, the internet, etc etc. Keyboard and mouse computers are not designed around our natural abilities, they are an acquired skill. If a system can accomplish the same tasks (email, word processing, calculations,...) without requiring a training and indoctrination program, then that is better and should be the end goal. The iPad (and future tablets and augmented reality devices) is going to do just that, and that is a very good thing indeed.
- roundsquare 17y ago
  I disagree. About 2 years ago I lived with a college senior who didn't know what the "My Documents" folder is, where their downloaded files went or that they could put things in different places. All her files were in one place and she had to make sure their names were easy to remember. Once, I put a folder on her desktop to download some images to, and she freaked out a bit. Funny shit for me, but a good learning experience as well. Edit: This is one example. I have other, smaller, examples.
davidmurphy 17y ago
Agreed. My Mom wants an iPad, too.
- dmix 17y ago
  I don't think my mom knows what an iPad is, yet, but if getting her one makes her stop calling me with computer issues then I'm sold!
cesare 17y ago
Sure. They should take it for granted. </sarcasm>
patio11 17y ago
Regarding file systems: One absurdly frequent source of customer issues with Bingo Card Creator was "I have no effective mental model of the file system, data as separate from programs, and how the physical location of a file relates to my physical location in the world." I have a huge number of customers who think that letters live in Word and bingo cards live in Bingo Card Creator. If you think like that, you might be unpleasantly surprised when you take your CD and install your Bingo Card Creator at school, and then Bingo Card Creator doesn't have your bingo cards in it any more. Actual quotes: "Did it lose them?", "I think my CD must have a virus." (People have been socialized to think that anything that goes wrong is, depending on the person, operator error or a virus/malware/etc.) When I released the online version of Bingo Card Creator, which essentially dispenses with the file/folder metaphor, this issue vanished. poof Their bingo cards really do live in Bingo Card Creator, for all intents and purposes. (Putting "cloud" support in the downloadable version, on the other hand, was a crashing failure -- probably a failure of communication on my part.) I think file systems are the new registry: something which should be hidden behind several signs saying "There be dragons here!" and which power users can be allowed to tweak, so that they can brag to their wives "Yep, it took me a while, but I opened up a folder on my C drive and found your file, then I copied it to your desktop. I'm good with computers, what can I say."
sjs 17y ago
On making people feel like idiots... do we still need KatMouse* on Windows 7? * http://ehiti.de/katmouse/ http://ehiti.de/katmouse/
francissson 17y ago
This post is reminiscent of The Design of Everyday things. A book that receives much praise but really annoyed me. Not so much the message, but the way it was written.
tensor 17y ago
All the people defending the iPad as "the computer for the average person" are missing one important point. Those of us upset about the iPad being a highly restricted device, rather than an Apple tablet netbook, are not upset because it is targeted to a different audience. We are not upset because we will not be "the needed geek" anymore (I bet most are actually quite happy about that). No. The problem is that Apple did not release anything else. They did not release a product for "professionals." Thus, some, perhaps many, IT people are upset because they were looking forward to a useful tool, and instead got a toy for mom. edit: And I want to add, there is no sign at all that an Apple tablet netbook will ever be released. Many people are frightened that the iPad represents where Apple is going for all of their product line.
loso 17y ago
I can see both sides of this issue. My parents have no problem with the computers for basic uses. My mom needs help more than my dad but if you tell her once, then she is ok. On the other hand, one time about 10 years ago, I used a friends computer to print out a flier that I had made for a nightclub promotion. The name of the file had a cuss word in it. I forgot that I had copied it to the desktop to print it and the parents freaked. They were only a little bit mad about the cuss word. They thought I had put a virus on their machine because I changed the Desktop. They threatened to call the cops and try to have me kicked out of college. I calmly went it over there, explained that it was only a picture, and right clicked and erased it. Until that point, I never realized that some people didn't know that you could place files on the Desktop of a computer.
GrandMasterBirt 17y ago
Another addition: My grandmother just played a Wii for the first time. Now my Grandmother has NEVER seen the thrill of video games since she first saw them 16 years ago. I mean she had no desire to play any whatsoever. When she saw me with the Wii she actually said "looks like fun, can I try?" and we played a game of bowling on the Wii. She didn't quite get the buttons but the motions she did and she had an absolute blast. Its all about interaction with the computer, and letting people interact with it in a natural way. Geeks care about "multitasking" on a computer, non-geeks care about their computers always running at top speed for any application they use. They don't care that you can have 100 windows open at a given time, just the fact that 1 is open and works well and they'll close it an open another. How many people here enjoy the fact that the blackberry allows multi-tasking and you have to spend time worrying about background processes sucking up your cpu? I think this is the reason why the chrome os has tons of potential.

88 points by fogus 17y ago

As with most things, which side you're on isn't as important as the fact that you're having the discussion. I'm excited to see what Apple's competitors come back with to combat the seeming ease of use and simple interface that the iPad is bringing to market. I'm not a big fan of Apple products, but I'm a huge fan of driving innovation...so I guess I am a big fan of Apple as a company :-)

decavolt 17y ago

Stop Being An Idiot - http://orderedlist.com/our-writing/blog/articles/stop-being-an-idiot/ http://orderedlist.com/our-writing/blog/articles/stop-being-... "Our job, when designing features and interfaces, is to make them powerful, usable, and understandable. Not to cater to those people too lazy to think. Our job is to make things intuitive. But intuition still requires an individual to want to understand something. It requires an attempt to understand. It requires thought, even subconsciously. We have little power over people’s desire to succeed. We can only provide the tools to do so. So teach people, don’t criticize them."

tdoggette 17y ago
It's hard for gentle pushing from software design to overcome years of learned helplessness.
- lurkinggrue 17y ago
  Around 92 I was forced into a required class for basic computers. I didn't pay much attention, but got A's as it was covering topics I already knew well. What I did learn from that class was from the students as I noticed many were just downright afrid of the machines and would only do what the teacher said. There was no sense of play and the fear of "Blowing something up" was always there and I wondered how anybody could learn with that kind of fear. I can understand getting frustrated but fear of the machine was baffling but I got a good glimpse on how "regular" people reacted to technology.
  - cracell 17y ago
    When I was about 9 or so I became extremely interesting in computers. I wasn't afraid of them....and I broke them over and over usually to the dismay of my family. Now I know how to do advanced things properly...but computers are very fragile and easy to break. This has to change for normal users, the Applet Tablet and Chrome OS are steps in that direction. People want stable machines that never break no matter what they do. Once we actually get to that point, maybe people will stop being so afraid but we aren't there, their fear comes from experience of things breaking on them.
    - rayboyd 17y ago
      Sounds exactly like me. When I was 10 I dismantled my ZX81 to 'see how it worked' and broke it of course. I then got a ZX Spectrum to keep me from crying about it which I also ended up taking apart, but managed not to break. I think I conditioned everyone in my family to be more afraid of letting me near electronic equipment with a screwdriver than the equipment itself.
  - pyre 17y ago
    There will always be people like that. My grandmother used to live with us as I was growing up, and she was always afraid of technology. She was afraid to touch the electronic thermostat... even though it only had two buttons and just displayed the set temp and the current temp. She was deathly afraid that she would 'break' it. {edit} On the other hand, you also have people that constantly break things as a result of their own actions, and refuse to change. My friend's sister would be constantly corrupting her external hard drive because she would just yank the plug to remove her laptop from her desk. My friend would fix things and repeatedly tell her not to do that, but it would always happen again. People are all over the spectrum. There are people that are just downright afraid of new things, and there are people that just take everything for granted (not caring what the consequences of their actions are).
    - bshep 17y ago
      My grandmother was always afraid that if you changed the channels on the tv too fast it would break the tv. To this day she's afraid of turning off the tv, she fears it wont turn back on.
- pwhelan 17y ago
  Is it learned helplessness or learned laziness? My mother can speak 5 different languages but "needed" me to show her how find her "My Documents" after she downloaded email attachments for years. It was amazing how after I stopped helping her with everything immediately ("Ma, I've got to finish this homework" is a remarkably effective retort) that she put in the effort to understand how to use this tool for her purposes. I think more than anything there just hasn't been a good enough effort to help people get up the first part of the learning curve as they often have no idea where to start and people haven't been taught how to protect themselves, etc. I agree with the earlier post that software designers have to want to make things simple, but people have to want to learn how to use it.

willNotCompile 17y ago

Somehow I don't think that learning how to operate a unique proprietary user interface(iPad) will help people to operate a real desktop computer. While it may temporary help to boost users self confidence in using a computer it will only serve as a fallback after the inevetable frustrations with a full UI. What is realy apsent from the mind of older generations is the idea that computers are just tools, albeit imensly powerfull ones, and as with all tools we need time and especially motivation to learn how to use them. Personally, I don't give a damm how my car works but I had to learn how to use it to get form one place to another and it would certainly be much harder to do it if every other car had a radically diferent set of controlls.

halostatue 17y ago
Apple is training people how to use the next generation of computers with their language. Because no one else has had the guts to do what Apple is doing, they are ceding the opportunity to define that language.
Skriticos 17y ago
A bit wrong of a comparison. A car is a tool, and can get dangerous, which is why it has this strict interface and education rules. Computer usage is more like math. It's something you just need, part of every day life, though many people still hate it, as it is more flexible. GUI's really share similar concepts, you just have to adapt them, and if people hate one word, than it's adapt - seriously hate. You really have time to figure out how things work and GUI's are really no rocket science to figure out. Nobody expects users to become system administrators or application developers, but answering questions about self explaining clickable graphical elements is very painful. (With a little endurance you could probably get a chimpanzee to understand most of our 'modern' UI's).
asmosoinio 17y ago
But why would all these people need a "real desktop computer"? People need to read their emails, browse their facebooks, store and browse their images... And most of them will get all this done easier with a simpler device than a "real" computer.
17y ago

dkimball 17y ago

One problem that I don't think the iPad's defenders are acknowledging is Joel Splosky's "Law of Leaky Abstractions" -- http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.htm... . Of course, the ideal is to leak minimally; Apple has always been good at that, but very bad at allowing anyone past the abstraction in the event that it breaks down. I believe the analogy is "sports cars with their hoods welded shut."

glhaynes 17y ago
In what ways do you expect the iPad to have problems with this?

themanr 17y ago

I don't think many people who have grown up using computers struggle with basic file system concepts, installing programs or using office applications. Maybe we have reached the stage where a basic understanding of computing, along with basic numeracy and literacy, is necessary to function in modern society?

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
glhaynes 17y ago
I don't find this to be the case. Very very few non-techy people I know (young or old) have a decent grasp of the file system, enough to have any confidence in using it beyond dumping a few files into a folder, if even that. People who use computers all day long in an office setting have issues with it. Kids who use "Internet stuff" all day have issues, too -- because they never have to deal with it, normally.
jbrun 17y ago
I completely disagree. Ask a non-techie friend to send you the full resolution photos from a recent weekend. Good luck. Despite the fact that it is easy to zip them, and send them by email or via a service like Yousendit.com - they cannot do it. People have very little understanding of file systems, files, the internet, etc etc. Keyboard and mouse computers are not designed around our natural abilities, they are an acquired skill. If a system can accomplish the same tasks (email, word processing, calculations,...) without requiring a training and indoctrination program, then that is better and should be the end goal. The iPad (and future tablets and augmented reality devices) is going to do just that, and that is a very good thing indeed.
roundsquare 17y ago
I disagree. About 2 years ago I lived with a college senior who didn't know what the "My Documents" folder is, where their downloaded files went or that they could put things in different places. All her files were in one place and she had to make sure their names were easy to remember. Once, I put a folder on her desktop to download some images to, and she freaked out a bit. Funny shit for me, but a good learning experience as well. Edit: This is one example. I have other, smaller, examples.

davidmurphy 17y ago

Agreed. My Mom wants an iPad, too.

dmix 17y ago
I don't think my mom knows what an iPad is, yet, but if getting her one makes her stop calling me with computer issues then I'm sold!

cesare 17y ago

Sure. They should take it for granted. </sarcasm>

patio11 17y ago

Regarding file systems: One absurdly frequent source of customer issues with Bingo Card Creator was "I have no effective mental model of the file system, data as separate from programs, and how the physical location of a file relates to my physical location in the world." I have a huge number of customers who think that letters live in Word and bingo cards live in Bingo Card Creator. If you think like that, you might be unpleasantly surprised when you take your CD and install your Bingo Card Creator at school, and then Bingo Card Creator doesn't have your bingo cards in it any more. Actual quotes: "Did it lose them?", "I think my CD must have a virus." (People have been socialized to think that anything that goes wrong is, depending on the person, operator error or a virus/malware/etc.) When I released the online version of Bingo Card Creator, which essentially dispenses with the file/folder metaphor, this issue vanished. poof Their bingo cards really do live in Bingo Card Creator, for all intents and purposes. (Putting "cloud" support in the downloadable version, on the other hand, was a crashing failure -- probably a failure of communication on my part.) I think file systems are the new registry: something which should be hidden behind several signs saying "There be dragons here!" and which power users can be allowed to tweak, so that they can brag to their wives "Yep, it took me a while, but I opened up a folder on my C drive and found your file, then I copied it to your desktop. I'm good with computers, what can I say."

sjs 17y ago

On making people feel like idiots... do we still need KatMouse* on Windows 7? * http://ehiti.de/katmouse/ http://ehiti.de/katmouse/

francissson 17y ago

This post is reminiscent of The Design of Everyday things. A book that receives much praise but really annoyed me. Not so much the message, but the way it was written.

tensor 17y ago

All the people defending the iPad as "the computer for the average person" are missing one important point. Those of us upset about the iPad being a highly restricted device, rather than an Apple tablet netbook, are not upset because it is targeted to a different audience. We are not upset because we will not be "the needed geek" anymore (I bet most are actually quite happy about that). No. The problem is that Apple did not release anything else. They did not release a product for "professionals." Thus, some, perhaps many, IT people are upset because they were looking forward to a useful tool, and instead got a toy for mom. edit: And I want to add, there is no sign at all that an Apple tablet netbook will ever be released. Many people are frightened that the iPad represents where Apple is going for all of their product line.

loso 17y ago

I can see both sides of this issue. My parents have no problem with the computers for basic uses. My mom needs help more than my dad but if you tell her once, then she is ok. On the other hand, one time about 10 years ago, I used a friends computer to print out a flier that I had made for a nightclub promotion. The name of the file had a cuss word in it. I forgot that I had copied it to the desktop to print it and the parents freaked. They were only a little bit mad about the cuss word. They thought I had put a virus on their machine because I changed the Desktop. They threatened to call the cops and try to have me kicked out of college. I calmly went it over there, explained that it was only a picture, and right clicked and erased it. Until that point, I never realized that some people didn't know that you could place files on the Desktop of a computer.

GrandMasterBirt 17y ago

Another addition: My grandmother just played a Wii for the first time. Now my Grandmother has NEVER seen the thrill of video games since she first saw them 16 years ago. I mean she had no desire to play any whatsoever. When she saw me with the Wii she actually said "looks like fun, can I try?" and we played a game of bowling on the Wii. She didn't quite get the buttons but the motions she did and she had an absolute blast. Its all about interaction with the computer, and letting people interact with it in a natural way. Geeks care about "multitasking" on a computer, non-geeks care about their computers always running at top speed for any application they use. They don't care that you can have 100 windows open at a given time, just the fact that 1 is open and works well and they'll close it an open another. How many people here enjoy the fact that the blackberry allows multi-tasking and you have to spend time worrying about background processes sucking up your cpu? I think this is the reason why the chrome os has tons of potential.