7 ms·

My current primary business is IT consulting, which really means that I spend most of my time working face-to-face with people that have trouble with computers

My current primary business is IT consulting, which really means that I spend most of my time working face-to-face with people that have trouble with computers and technology in general. So, this kind of behavior isn't news to me. In fact, I've tried often to convince the tech-savvy that most users have problems like this, and I've never been all that successful. The RWW "Facebook login" is great from this standpoint, because suddenly a bunch of web programmers have gotten this glimpse of the world outside their bubble, and have collectively gone, "Oh." Now let's talk about the kind of people these people are. I've noticed a number of comments about their illiteracy, or implying that they must not be paying attention. While there might be a kernel of truth to that, I'd like you to know that most of these are good people, and many of them have accomplished more in their lives than many of the denigrating commenters ever will. For example, one of my clients is an aesthetician that runs a relatively high-tech place. Her angle comes from surviving cancer, and advocating healthier products for people looking for that kind of stuff. She runs a busy brick-and-mortar shop, bootstrapped it from the ground up, works obscene amounts of hours, has one kid in college abroad in Japan, and another kid finishing high school soon. She's a hell of a woman. But, she's totally lost on Facebook. Someone told her she should do it, so she is, and we're helping her. She can't manage her email list, and has trouble doing mail merges, so we help her with that too. When a computer puts an error up on the screen, she doesn't read it, analyze it, research it, figure it out; she simply concludes that the computer has had a problem, and she needs help with it. She's certainly not dumb, but you wouldn't know it by her computer skills. My weakness is cooking. I'm a reasonably competent programmer, literate, and I can fix cars, etc., but I'm a laughably terrible cook. More than likely, everyone here has at least one subject which is so alien, so foreign, that they just won't "get" it, no matter how simple it becomes.

jpd 17y ago
I'd imagine if your food came with instructions on how to cook them you, as a poor cook, would at least know enough to read and follow the instructions. I can't cook worth a dime normally, but I can follow directions in order to make Mac & Cheese or Ramen. I daresay, if something I am not familiar with pops up with an error message, I would at least read it!
- silvestrov 17y ago
  Problem is, most cook books are dreadful. They leave out all sorts of important details, and assume you are a master cook.
  - mixmax 17y ago
    Sounds just like computer programs.
- thaumaturgy 17y ago
  As my Cordon-Bleu trained chef friend likes to say, Stuff That Comes In A Box Is Not Cooking! Are you really that positive that there is no subject which is so baffling to you that you wouldn't even attempt to diagnose something related to it? 'Cause I've met plenty of programmery-types that don't know a fuel pump from an alternator, and when their car breaks down, they're as stuck as everyone else. You're ignoring the fact that computers are filled with text. Menus, window titles, commands, icons, etc. etc. -- your brain has already been trained to filter through all that. You do it without even thinking about it. Lots of other people do not. So, to them, the directions, or that pop up, is just more words on the screen.
  - Groxx 17y ago
    So, to them, the directions, or that pop up, is just more words on the screen. It's one of the main problems with user interface for the really tech-inept. It's a fundamentally hard problem, because you don't know what they're expecting, and you can't predict it 100% of the time. That said though, most programmery-types are problem-solvers at heart, and would be looking for information when their car broke down. Many people don't even look for the word "help" when stuck on a computer, they just make a fuss and wait / storm off because they fully think it's incomprehensible to them (usually because they haven't tried learning anything about it). As complex as computers are, take a look at OLPC and similar projects, where a supremely back-water pocket of a society is introduced to computers for the first time. The kids look, poke, and are up and running within minutes because they're learning how to use it. Adults who try achieve the same in roughly the same amount of time. Many non-tech people though won't even approach it as something new, they expect it to be a "magic box" that does what they want, not what they tell it to do (like employees?). Nothing in the world works that way, why expect this to be any different?
isleyaardvark 17y ago
"But, she's totally lost on Facebook." Is that really so bad, though? I don't know about anybody else, but I've never liked the Facebook UI. I always thought it was a confusing mess. Lite Facebook is about as close as they've gotten to something user-friendly. Granted, that's a bit different from the ridiculousness involved with the RWW post, but they're already trying to log in to a confusing website that has been changing it's interface recently.
- thaumaturgy 17y ago
  I just used Facebook as an example because it's topical. She can find her way around Quickbooks well enough, since she uses it as her POS. Other than that, it's all a mystery. The point was, let's dispense with this notion that intelligence and general ability are somehow related to computer literacy. If anyone's not sure about this, I'd be more than happy to talk about one of my other clients, a guy who used to build floating homes -- not little houseboats, but multi-story works of art, on water. And he's completely lost on a computer.
  - donaq 17y ago
    Interesting. How much effort have these people put into acquiring computer literacy though? It is hard for me to believe that anyone with average intelligence who applies him/herself for a day or two cannot master browsing the web. I mean, if you can look up a road directory and navigate to an address, or consult a phone directory and find a specific phone number, you already possess the required skills to understand web browsing. It is not really that alien, is what I'm saying. The fact that it appears alien to the people you mention is probably due more to having some sort of mental block against exploring computers than to computers being actually alien to them. My mother, for instance, had for the longest time an aversion to trying stuff out on a computer for fear of damaging it. She only started getting it when I gave her an old laptop and assured her that it was ok if she totally junked it. She would still have her desktop and I no longer needed that box. Now she's happily discovering and playing games on Facebook and wasn't even fazed by the recent change in the UI. :)
    - 17y ago
Groxx 17y ago
...most of these are good people, and many of them have accomplished more in their lives than many of the denigrating commenters ever will. While true, I'll still be prejudiced against people that leave comments like (#14): wtf is this bullshttttttttttt all about. can i get n plzzzzzzzzz and I'll actively argue that many who spell and act this poorly in public are probably at least as much of a detriment to society as they are a boon. Most of those smart-but-not-tech-savvy people can at least communicate properly. edit: the comment prejudice applies to bashers too. Poor behavior is poor behavior.
- madair 17y ago
  Prejudice (1) : preconceived judgment or opinion (2) : an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge Yep, sounds like you are prejudiced.
  - Groxx 17y ago
    I did just admit it. Many of the worst-behavers I've encountered act similarly or worse on the internet, and the reverse has been quite accurate for the few I've encountered in that manner. It's certainly prejudice, but that doesn't make it wholly (or even mostly) invalid. Prejudices have a prejudiced opinion applied to them. That snarling dog? It may not bite you, but it's rational to be prejudiced towards believing it may harm you. Though it may often be wrong, it proves valuable in the long run. The same goes for the person with a knife out, glaring at you, looking drunk. It could be totally harmless, but it may not be. By all means, go into the dark alley with them if you are wholly against prejudice. Unless, of course, they're never examined. They can be wrong or detrimental just like anything else. But broken down, all rational behavior towards anything alive is effectively prejudice, because you can't have sufficient knowledge to predict it perfectly.
    - madair 17y ago
      There is nothing good about this at all, this is class warfare and culture warfare all wrapped up together, both very bad and both ripping America, among other places, apart right about....now. You have absolutely no clue about this person and yet you are prejudiced against him, her, it. Is he/she/it 10 years old? You have no clue. You don't know background, you know nothing except that this person just feels that they got cheated, and they are not experienced enough to know that they are simply on the wrong page. But hey, it's okay, because you admit it, huh?
tlrobinson 17y ago
Surely this happens any time some new technology is introduced. If you look at the people who mistook the RWW article for Facebook they're almost invariably over 30, and I didn't see a single teenager or college age person.
fragmede 17y ago
I'm a terrible cook, but if I was baking a cake, and used laundry detergent instead of flour (I mean, they're both white and powdery...) I'd absolutely deserve any comments about my (lack-of) intelligence. The "News results for facebook login" section on Google is very clearly marked, with, umm, well theres a picture, and a bit of indentation? In this case, I must lay some blame on Google for putting laundry detergent in paper sack with an off-blue stripe rather similar to one flour comes in. Google could improve the situation by having the news results be in a more clearly marked section, perhaps with a different background color and a solid outline.
- thaumaturgy 17y ago
  This isn't Google's fault. In Firefox, if you type a non-address directly into the address bar, it automagically directs you to the top Google hit for that query. The real failure here is Mozilla, for releasing a "feature" that, as usual, appeals to computer power users, and royally fucks over computer novices.
  - robryan 17y ago
    In this case novices which assume it is the all powerful magic bar which they can type anything into and it will take them where they want to go.
  - blasdel 17y ago
    It's much, much worse on the GTK version of Firefox -- inspired by the X default of mouse3==paste, on such platforms they make the middlemouse.contentLoadURL config default to true. This means that if you middle click anywhere in the window that isn't a link, it instantly redirects you to the "I'm feeling lucky" result for the contents of the last text selection you made. I cannot think of a single creepier usability clusterfuck. Added fun: until a few years ago, http://www.microsoft.com http://www.microsoft.com was the first google search result for "http". This meant that malformed links (missing the colon, for instance) almost always pointed directly to Microsoft, on all platforms. It's a bit less baffling than it used to be, as not the wikipedia article on HTTP is the first result.
statictype 17y ago
My uncle is an accomplished Orthopedic surgeon. He's smart, well read, well-respected (and deservingly so). And it's almost painful watching him operate a computer sometimes. Basic tasks like moving around a Window to uncover another one needs to be explained. Some people are lousy drivers. Some people are just really bad with using a computer. But: He would never leave the type of comment you see on the linked site. Have you seen those? I'm not convinced that these are the same accomplished people that you and I are talking about. There's no denying that a lot of people still get confused about websites and google and the internet as a whole. But if you're using facebook and using it enough to complain about the 'new login page' then you really should be held to higher standards.
- Ras_ 17y ago
  I remember tutoring my mother in the use of computers. It was the early 90s and she had no previous experience whatsoever. To my amazement such seemingly trivial things like double clicking turned out to be a problem. She tapped the mouse button twice, but too slowly to register. While my first reaction to this was embarrassment, the whole thing turned out to be a learning experiment for me - in human condition.
eitally 17y ago
More accurately, everyone here has at least one subject about which they care so little that they won't attempt to "get" it, no matter how simple it becomes. If I start talking computing to my wife, her brain immediately turns off. If i start listening to her reading recipes, mine does the same. It's not that she doesn't enjoy using computers or that I don't enjoy eating the food she cooks, but we all have limited bandwidth and most of us have conscious filters by which we restrict our CPU cycles to subjects that actively interest us. I think when dealing with the general public, specialists too often confuse "don't care" with "is stupid".
wvenable 17y ago
> When a computer puts an error up on the screen The funny thing is, you can turn most people away from the computer and read the error message verbatim (or any other dialog) and they'll be able to answer you. It's merely the fact that it's displayed on the computer that confuses/scares them. Once they've answered you (say "Yes, I want to cancel") you can turn them back to the computer and they'll still have trouble picking the right button. There is some kind of mental block here -- but I believe that most people can get past it if they're forced to interact with computers. I rarely just click on a dialog for people -- I make them read it. I make them think about it. I make them pick the right button -- over and over. Eventually they gain more confidence and can do it themselves. And slowly they do begin to "get" computers. Dropping someone into facebook without them having the confidence is probably never going to work. But smart people don't have to be dumb with computers.
- davidmurphy 17y ago
  This is a great point. A relative still gets really scared when the anti-virus software pops up with an "install update?" kind of message, etc. She's a smart women with 2 masters degrees, but when an unexpected dialog box or popup box appears on the screen, her brain shuts down and fear takes over.

jpd 17y ago

I'd imagine if your food came with instructions on how to cook them you, as a poor cook, would at least know enough to read and follow the instructions. I can't cook worth a dime normally, but I can follow directions in order to make Mac & Cheese or Ramen. I daresay, if something I am not familiar with pops up with an error message, I would at least read it!

silvestrov 17y ago
Problem is, most cook books are dreadful. They leave out all sorts of important details, and assume you are a master cook.
- mixmax 17y ago
  Sounds just like computer programs.
thaumaturgy 17y ago
As my Cordon-Bleu trained chef friend likes to say, Stuff That Comes In A Box Is Not Cooking! Are you really that positive that there is no subject which is so baffling to you that you wouldn't even attempt to diagnose something related to it? 'Cause I've met plenty of programmery-types that don't know a fuel pump from an alternator, and when their car breaks down, they're as stuck as everyone else. You're ignoring the fact that computers are filled with text. Menus, window titles, commands, icons, etc. etc. -- your brain has already been trained to filter through all that. You do it without even thinking about it. Lots of other people do not. So, to them, the directions, or that pop up, is just more words on the screen.
- Groxx 17y ago
  So, to them, the directions, or that pop up, is just more words on the screen. It's one of the main problems with user interface for the really tech-inept. It's a fundamentally hard problem, because you don't know what they're expecting, and you can't predict it 100% of the time. That said though, most programmery-types are problem-solvers at heart, and would be looking for information when their car broke down. Many people don't even look for the word "help" when stuck on a computer, they just make a fuss and wait / storm off because they fully think it's incomprehensible to them (usually because they haven't tried learning anything about it). As complex as computers are, take a look at OLPC and similar projects, where a supremely back-water pocket of a society is introduced to computers for the first time. The kids look, poke, and are up and running within minutes because they're learning how to use it. Adults who try achieve the same in roughly the same amount of time. Many non-tech people though won't even approach it as something new, they expect it to be a "magic box" that does what they want, not what they tell it to do (like employees?). Nothing in the world works that way, why expect this to be any different?

isleyaardvark 17y ago

"But, she's totally lost on Facebook." Is that really so bad, though? I don't know about anybody else, but I've never liked the Facebook UI. I always thought it was a confusing mess. Lite Facebook is about as close as they've gotten to something user-friendly. Granted, that's a bit different from the ridiculousness involved with the RWW post, but they're already trying to log in to a confusing website that has been changing it's interface recently.

thaumaturgy 17y ago
I just used Facebook as an example because it's topical. She can find her way around Quickbooks well enough, since she uses it as her POS. Other than that, it's all a mystery. The point was, let's dispense with this notion that intelligence and general ability are somehow related to computer literacy. If anyone's not sure about this, I'd be more than happy to talk about one of my other clients, a guy who used to build floating homes -- not little houseboats, but multi-story works of art, on water. And he's completely lost on a computer.
- donaq 17y ago
  Interesting. How much effort have these people put into acquiring computer literacy though? It is hard for me to believe that anyone with average intelligence who applies him/herself for a day or two cannot master browsing the web. I mean, if you can look up a road directory and navigate to an address, or consult a phone directory and find a specific phone number, you already possess the required skills to understand web browsing. It is not really that alien, is what I'm saying. The fact that it appears alien to the people you mention is probably due more to having some sort of mental block against exploring computers than to computers being actually alien to them. My mother, for instance, had for the longest time an aversion to trying stuff out on a computer for fear of damaging it. She only started getting it when I gave her an old laptop and assured her that it was ok if she totally junked it. She would still have her desktop and I no longer needed that box. Now she's happily discovering and playing games on Facebook and wasn't even fazed by the recent change in the UI. :)
  - 17y ago

Groxx 17y ago

...most of these are good people, and many of them have accomplished more in their lives than many of the denigrating commenters ever will. While true, I'll still be prejudiced against people that leave comments like (#14): wtf is this bullshttttttttttt all about. can i get n plzzzzzzzzz and I'll actively argue that many who spell and act this poorly in public are probably at least as much of a detriment to society as they are a boon. Most of those smart-but-not-tech-savvy people can at least communicate properly. edit: the comment prejudice applies to bashers too. Poor behavior is poor behavior.

madair 17y ago
Prejudice (1) : preconceived judgment or opinion (2) : an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge Yep, sounds like you are prejudiced.
- Groxx 17y ago
  I did just admit it. Many of the worst-behavers I've encountered act similarly or worse on the internet, and the reverse has been quite accurate for the few I've encountered in that manner. It's certainly prejudice, but that doesn't make it wholly (or even mostly) invalid. Prejudices have a prejudiced opinion applied to them. That snarling dog? It may not bite you, but it's rational to be prejudiced towards believing it may harm you. Though it may often be wrong, it proves valuable in the long run. The same goes for the person with a knife out, glaring at you, looking drunk. It could be totally harmless, but it may not be. By all means, go into the dark alley with them if you are wholly against prejudice. Unless, of course, they're never examined. They can be wrong or detrimental just like anything else. But broken down, all rational behavior towards anything alive is effectively prejudice, because you can't have sufficient knowledge to predict it perfectly.
  - madair 17y ago
    There is nothing good about this at all, this is class warfare and culture warfare all wrapped up together, both very bad and both ripping America, among other places, apart right about....now. You have absolutely no clue about this person and yet you are prejudiced against him, her, it. Is he/she/it 10 years old? You have no clue. You don't know background, you know nothing except that this person just feels that they got cheated, and they are not experienced enough to know that they are simply on the wrong page. But hey, it's okay, because you admit it, huh?

tlrobinson 17y ago

Surely this happens any time some new technology is introduced. If you look at the people who mistook the RWW article for Facebook they're almost invariably over 30, and I didn't see a single teenager or college age person.

fragmede 17y ago

I'm a terrible cook, but if I was baking a cake, and used laundry detergent instead of flour (I mean, they're both white and powdery...) I'd absolutely deserve any comments about my (lack-of) intelligence. The "News results for facebook login" section on Google is very clearly marked, with, umm, well theres a picture, and a bit of indentation? In this case, I must lay some blame on Google for putting laundry detergent in paper sack with an off-blue stripe rather similar to one flour comes in. Google could improve the situation by having the news results be in a more clearly marked section, perhaps with a different background color and a solid outline.

thaumaturgy 17y ago
This isn't Google's fault. In Firefox, if you type a non-address directly into the address bar, it automagically directs you to the top Google hit for that query. The real failure here is Mozilla, for releasing a "feature" that, as usual, appeals to computer power users, and royally fucks over computer novices.
- robryan 17y ago
  In this case novices which assume it is the all powerful magic bar which they can type anything into and it will take them where they want to go.
- blasdel 17y ago
  It's much, much worse on the GTK version of Firefox -- inspired by the X default of mouse3==paste, on such platforms they make the middlemouse.contentLoadURL config default to true. This means that if you middle click anywhere in the window that isn't a link, it instantly redirects you to the "I'm feeling lucky" result for the contents of the last text selection you made. I cannot think of a single creepier usability clusterfuck. Added fun: until a few years ago, http://www.microsoft.com http://www.microsoft.com was the first google search result for "http". This meant that malformed links (missing the colon, for instance) almost always pointed directly to Microsoft, on all platforms. It's a bit less baffling than it used to be, as not the wikipedia article on HTTP is the first result.

statictype 17y ago

My uncle is an accomplished Orthopedic surgeon. He's smart, well read, well-respected (and deservingly so). And it's almost painful watching him operate a computer sometimes. Basic tasks like moving around a Window to uncover another one needs to be explained. Some people are lousy drivers. Some people are just really bad with using a computer. But: He would never leave the type of comment you see on the linked site. Have you seen those? I'm not convinced that these are the same accomplished people that you and I are talking about. There's no denying that a lot of people still get confused about websites and google and the internet as a whole. But if you're using facebook and using it enough to complain about the 'new login page' then you really should be held to higher standards.

Ras_ 17y ago
I remember tutoring my mother in the use of computers. It was the early 90s and she had no previous experience whatsoever. To my amazement such seemingly trivial things like double clicking turned out to be a problem. She tapped the mouse button twice, but too slowly to register. While my first reaction to this was embarrassment, the whole thing turned out to be a learning experiment for me - in human condition.

eitally 17y ago

More accurately, everyone here has at least one subject about which they care so little that they won't attempt to "get" it, no matter how simple it becomes. If I start talking computing to my wife, her brain immediately turns off. If i start listening to her reading recipes, mine does the same. It's not that she doesn't enjoy using computers or that I don't enjoy eating the food she cooks, but we all have limited bandwidth and most of us have conscious filters by which we restrict our CPU cycles to subjects that actively interest us. I think when dealing with the general public, specialists too often confuse "don't care" with "is stupid".

wvenable 17y ago

> When a computer puts an error up on the screen The funny thing is, you can turn most people away from the computer and read the error message verbatim (or any other dialog) and they'll be able to answer you. It's merely the fact that it's displayed on the computer that confuses/scares them. Once they've answered you (say "Yes, I want to cancel") you can turn them back to the computer and they'll still have trouble picking the right button. There is some kind of mental block here -- but I believe that most people can get past it if they're forced to interact with computers. I rarely just click on a dialog for people -- I make them read it. I make them think about it. I make them pick the right button -- over and over. Eventually they gain more confidence and can do it themselves. And slowly they do begin to "get" computers. Dropping someone into facebook without them having the confidence is probably never going to work. But smart people don't have to be dumb with computers.

davidmurphy 17y ago
This is a great point. A relative still gets really scared when the anti-virus software pops up with an "install update?" kind of message, etc. She's a smart women with 2 masters degrees, but when an unexpected dialog box or popup box appears on the screen, her brain shuts down and fear takes over.