4 ms·

Answer: You can't, and no, you shouldn't try. You have to assume your users actually have the ability to get to your website before you can worry about what the

by jpd 17y ago

Answer: You can't, and no, you shouldn't try. You have to assume your users actually have the ability to get to your website before you can worry about what they do when they get there. Sorry, but this whole thing is a whole new level of idiocy I had not previously encountered: Even my mother (whose sole computer skill is that she can get to amazon.com to buy gifts for people) would be able to determine whether or not she was at amazon after searching Google and clicking a random link. My God! RWW isn't even BLUE for heaven's sakes.

patio11 17y ago
You have to assume your users actually have the ability to get to your website before you can worry about what they do when they get there. Yes, but for most businesses you'll want them to be able to get back too, and that is non-trivial and worth optimizing for. Get their email address and send them opt-in lifecycle emails. This is, far and away, the best alternative. Have them bookmark your site. Many of them will not understand bookmarks. Teach them to understand. SEO for whatever users thing your business name is. If you think your app is called Foobar and users think your app is called Fubar then you had better be at the top of the results for [fubar], too. Get desktop/dock/launch bar real estate. (Desktop apps: not dead yet! They can still open websites. :))
- pyre 17y ago
  > Have them bookmark your site. Many of them will not understand bookmarks. Teach them to understand. Isn't that really advocating that each and every website on the internet should teach their users basic computer skills? I mean if these people had bought a magazine from the news stand, and it said "Popular Mechanics" instead of "Playboy" on it, do you think that they would just say to themselves, "I guess that Playboy changed their name, logo, and stopped showing pictures of naked women. Interesting. I'll have to tell me friends about this?"
  - patio11 17y ago
    A hypothetical engineer might be emotionally invested in "Everyone should know enough about computers to do basic things, and they should have learned that years ago, so if they can't do them it is their fault." That hypothetical engineer might bristle at being told "You should help them succeed, even if it means teaching them the basics." A hypothetical business owner, told that there was an issue that was preventing his customers from paying him money, would probably say "Fix it." Some days we have to pick whether we want to be engineers or business owners. For my part, I spent time yesterday teaching a PhD how to open PDFs.
    - pyre 17y ago
      > "Everyone should know enough about computers to do basic things, and they should have learned that years ago, so if they can't do them it is their fault." I think that it's more along the lines of assuming that everyone on the road took a driver's test to be there. You don't think that people should have learned to drive years ago. People just feel that you should be able to assume a certain level of competency among your users as part and parcel of owning/using a computer. But as we see in the real world, you can never assume that people have a certain level of knowledge/logic ability. (i.e. Needing to put the "do not use top of ladder as a step" warning on ladders because there are enough people that don't realize that's dangerous)
prawn 17y ago
Slightly akin to getting in a taxi, saying "Joe's place", ending up at in a house that is entirely unlike that of your friend Joe's, the furniture is different, etc and still being confused at why those in the house aren't happy to see you. I'm early 30s and already prone to delegating rather than learning new technology, but I at least make the effort to read instructions, warnings and errors so I know what's going on.
GHFigs 17y ago
My God! RWW isn't even BLUE for heaven's sakes. Facebook users who have made this mistake are also confused by this. Clearly something is amiss--they know they aren't at the Facebook they desire--but they don't know where the mistake was made, or by whom. Even the basic error is not egregiously stupid. Generally speaking, wouldn't you expect, from years of Google usage, that the first result for "facebook login" to be the Facebook login page? In fact, it is, if you ignore the news results. If. Consider that: RWW is a top result for "facebook login" (not a "random link"), it does have multiple Facebook logos and the text "Sign in with Facebook" directly above the comment form. These things conspire to aid the user's confusion along with the most damning setter of expectations: the fact that it used to work. You may understand that Google's results are not always perfect, that the Facebook logo appears on sites unrelated to Facebook, and that "Sign in with Facebook" does not have anything to do with using Facebook. But does Gladys? Evidently not. And why should she? Until yesterday, she didn't need to.

by jpd 17y ago

patio11 17y ago

You have to assume your users actually have the ability to get to your website before you can worry about what they do when they get there. Yes, but for most businesses you'll want them to be able to get back too, and that is non-trivial and worth optimizing for. Get their email address and send them opt-in lifecycle emails. This is, far and away, the best alternative. Have them bookmark your site. Many of them will not understand bookmarks. Teach them to understand. SEO for whatever users thing your business name is. If you think your app is called Foobar and users think your app is called Fubar then you had better be at the top of the results for [fubar], too. Get desktop/dock/launch bar real estate. (Desktop apps: not dead yet! They can still open websites. :))

pyre 17y ago
> Have them bookmark your site. Many of them will not understand bookmarks. Teach them to understand. Isn't that really advocating that each and every website on the internet should teach their users basic computer skills? I mean if these people had bought a magazine from the news stand, and it said "Popular Mechanics" instead of "Playboy" on it, do you think that they would just say to themselves, "I guess that Playboy changed their name, logo, and stopped showing pictures of naked women. Interesting. I'll have to tell me friends about this?"
- patio11 17y ago
  A hypothetical engineer might be emotionally invested in "Everyone should know enough about computers to do basic things, and they should have learned that years ago, so if they can't do them it is their fault." That hypothetical engineer might bristle at being told "You should help them succeed, even if it means teaching them the basics." A hypothetical business owner, told that there was an issue that was preventing his customers from paying him money, would probably say "Fix it." Some days we have to pick whether we want to be engineers or business owners. For my part, I spent time yesterday teaching a PhD how to open PDFs.
  - pyre 17y ago
    > "Everyone should know enough about computers to do basic things, and they should have learned that years ago, so if they can't do them it is their fault." I think that it's more along the lines of assuming that everyone on the road took a driver's test to be there. You don't think that people should have learned to drive years ago. People just feel that you should be able to assume a certain level of competency among your users as part and parcel of owning/using a computer. But as we see in the real world, you can never assume that people have a certain level of knowledge/logic ability. (i.e. Needing to put the "do not use top of ladder as a step" warning on ladders because there are enough people that don't realize that's dangerous)

prawn 17y ago

Slightly akin to getting in a taxi, saying "Joe's place", ending up at in a house that is entirely unlike that of your friend Joe's, the furniture is different, etc and still being confused at why those in the house aren't happy to see you. I'm early 30s and already prone to delegating rather than learning new technology, but I at least make the effort to read instructions, warnings and errors so I know what's going on.

GHFigs 17y ago

My God! RWW isn't even BLUE for heaven's sakes. Facebook users who have made this mistake are also confused by this. Clearly something is amiss--they know they aren't at the Facebook they desire--but they don't know where the mistake was made, or by whom. Even the basic error is not egregiously stupid. Generally speaking, wouldn't you expect, from years of Google usage, that the first result for "facebook login" to be the Facebook login page? In fact, it is, if you ignore the news results. If. Consider that: RWW is a top result for "facebook login" (not a "random link"), it does have multiple Facebook logos and the text "Sign in with Facebook" directly above the comment form. These things conspire to aid the user's confusion along with the most damning setter of expectations: the fact that it used to work. You may understand that Google's results are not always perfect, that the Facebook logo appears on sites unrelated to Facebook, and that "Sign in with Facebook" does not have anything to do with using Facebook. But does Gladys? Evidently not. And why should she? Until yesterday, she didn't need to.