5 ms·

Why is that? It used to be that there were help files and you pushed buttons until you figured out what they did. You had pages and pages of comfiguation option

by KGIII 9y ago

Why is that? It used to be that there were help files and you pushed buttons until you figured out what they did. You had pages and pages of comfiguation options. You had manuals that explained things - without needing a browser. You had settings and advanced settings, hidden switches, and tweaks. Now, you get a hamburger icon and there's not even an exit button. Part of the joy of computing was figuring out what all those buttons and options did. VLC is one application that still has a decent settings selection and their advanced options is just about perfect. I don't even know what half those options are for - but I like it. Please give me back my options to break stuff. I am not scared. Breaking stuff helps me learn. I don't even remember the last time I broke things bad enough to need a reformat. That's not for lack of trying, it's for lack of buttons. I'd like to kindly request you put those buttons back. Seriously, discovering features and mashing buttons until you learn is one of the great joys of computing.

kelnos 9y ago
The result of computing leaving the hands of heavily-technical users and entering the world of the non-technical is that people are terrified of doing the wrong thing and breaking things. Technical people inherently know that there's very little they can do that's irreversible, and that they'll be able to figure out how to reverse even the craziest of breakage. Non-technical people do not assume breakage is irreversible, and even when they do, they do not assume that they'll be able to unbreak it themselves. Finding someone to help is a nuisance and can be embarrassing.
- KGIII 9y ago
  Maybe if they had to struggle, they'd learn? If we old people could do it, the next generation is smart enough to do it. Hell, they've got Google to help them. It's not like I'm expecting a return of dip switches and multi-binder manuals. Just, maybe, stop designing for the lowest common denominator? People aren't going to learn unless you give them a reason to. People aren't going to learn if they don't have to. Would you rather smarter users, or simplistic software that underperforms and offers only one output option? I favor choice. I do admit that it makes good financial choice to cater to the lowest common denominator, but even many of my beloved Linux apps are getting dumbed down. I haven't even had a kernel panic in years. Hell, I haven't even had to compile my own kernel in this whole decade. (I have, I just didn't need to.) It's not about keeping it out of the hands of the less technical, it's about still keeping it educational for those of us who are. What kind of dystopia is it, when the preferences menu has but three options? Instead of a stylus, maybe you should just give me a crayon! Really, I think VLC has it right. Handbrake is pretty good. Gimp goes a bit overboard, but I can respect that. My VNC server? It's got like eight options, total. Torrent client? Maybe twice that many, spread over four panes. That's like putting four pieces of lettuce on four plates and telling me it's a salad! Mobile apps? Some of them don't even have options! If there are no options, why use an app? Just use the web! Hell, they don't even have a close option, some of them. What if I want to close it and restart it at the default screen? Task manager or reboot, that's what. 'Snot like it has a discernable back button. No options to configure it, either. I think people with mental handicaps should be allowed to use computers, just like everyone else. It doesn't mean you should design with them as your primary target audience. I'm pretty sure it took more work to take the buttons out than it took to leave them in there. I can't even begin to count the number of updates that have removed options. What the hell was that? You worked harder to make the application do less. I don't even understand that mentality. Sorry for the rant but this is a pet peeve. Imma start a Bring Back The Buttons campaign. It extends to other things, too. I noticed a friend's new television. Their remote had 3 buttons on it. It wasn't even broken, it came like that from the factory.
  - p_l 9y ago
    There's even a specific concept in UX research related to that whose name escapes me at the moment, but generally boils to "discoverable interface" that is also open and encouraging the user to explore. This way you aren't "blocked" when you first open the application - but you're encouraged to learn and become expert.
- pdkl95 9y ago
  That isn't an argument for removing options or a "simpler" UI (which is usually a euphemism for "inflexible", "fewer features/capabilities"). Yes, non-technical people are often reluctant to experiment due to fears about breaking something. The solution to this problem is to have very clear boundaries around anything that actually does cause irreversible changes (or other "important" actions) while designing the rest of the UI in a way that emphasizes - explicitly, if necessary - that everything is ephemeral. Having a very clear boundary between "safe for experimentation" and anything permanent/important is the most important part. People will learn to experiment if you explain that nothing will be saved until they press the visually distinct "Save Changes") button. When relevant, explain they can use the clearly marked "reload"/"reset" button to return to the original ("fixed") version, so they have a reason to feal safe experimenting. "Magic"/"DWIM" interfaces and functionally overloaded UI features undermine confidence that experimenting is "safe", because they are hard to predict.
  - vertex-four 9y ago
    The problem is that for some significant amount of users, they don't have the mental model to differentiate between running stuff in an Administrator prompt and playing about with their Word settings - one of them being dangerous and one of them not. We'd have to go right back to OS design principles in the first place to teach people that computers are not terrifying behemoths that are about to fall over at any given second, and then maybe that would follow through into our apps - but as it stands, they come with the default expectation that anything they do might result in needing to call IT. Funnily enough, ChromeOS gets that more-or-less right. There's barely anything you can do to a ChromeOS machine that makes it unusable, and nearly everything is ephemeral. Then you have the always-revertible settings in Google's web apps, and people love it.
    - jpindar 9y ago
      So hide the advanced options, like Firefox and its about:config. Even ask the user to solve some technical puzzle (hex math, perhaps) to prove they are worthy.
rocqua 9y ago
All of that is great for us, the people who got into computing way back when. Then, computing became useful, and had to be used by people who don't like to twiddle with settings. It seems to be the case that those are in the vast majority. Moreover, there is a vocal minority of people that tweak settings, break something, and then start complaining / requiring support. The end result is that our preferences are no longer the majority and thus are no longer catered to.
- KGIII 9y ago
  My toaster still has a slider to select how long I want to cook it. I wrote a long reply to the other person, I think I summed it up there. You can feel free to expand the thread and read it. It's one of my better rants, if I do say so myself. Even Linux is impacted by this. I keep hearing complaints about flat design, I don't even know what that is. I just want my buttons back. New users don't actually have to push them. Just because a button exists doesn't mean Joe Sixpack has to push it. Maybe if he pushes it enough times, people will stop fixing his computer and he will learn to fix it himself. Then, with time, he can learn to stop breaking it. Not that long ago, I got some help to write some scripts to grab the entirety of the Ubuntu man pages and automatically convert them to PDF and provide an index for them. When I posed my question, explaining where I was stuck and what my goal was, the first questions where, effectively, "Why would you want to do that? Nobody wants to do that!" It's a horrible state of affairs. I'm considering moving to GhostBSD. At least they still have buttons.
  - iovrthoughtthis 9y ago
    'My toaster still has a slider to select how long I want to cook it.' And this is great, simple UI that means you can use it without a manual. If we we're to liken a lot of "configurable" software to the toaster it would: * A resistance range setting that defined the max and min resistance ranges of the internal heating element, implicitly measured in ohms. * A resistance setting to defines the current resistance from 0 - 100% where the percentage set gets it's temperature from the range defined with the resistance range UI element. * A timer setter that allows you to set the time-to-cook value via a ISO 8601 formatted duration. etc.

by KGIII 9y ago

kelnos 9y ago

The result of computing leaving the hands of heavily-technical users and entering the world of the non-technical is that people are terrified of doing the wrong thing and breaking things. Technical people inherently know that there's very little they can do that's irreversible, and that they'll be able to figure out how to reverse even the craziest of breakage. Non-technical people do not assume breakage is irreversible, and even when they do, they do not assume that they'll be able to unbreak it themselves. Finding someone to help is a nuisance and can be embarrassing.

KGIII 9y ago
Maybe if they had to struggle, they'd learn? If we old people could do it, the next generation is smart enough to do it. Hell, they've got Google to help them. It's not like I'm expecting a return of dip switches and multi-binder manuals. Just, maybe, stop designing for the lowest common denominator? People aren't going to learn unless you give them a reason to. People aren't going to learn if they don't have to. Would you rather smarter users, or simplistic software that underperforms and offers only one output option? I favor choice. I do admit that it makes good financial choice to cater to the lowest common denominator, but even many of my beloved Linux apps are getting dumbed down. I haven't even had a kernel panic in years. Hell, I haven't even had to compile my own kernel in this whole decade. (I have, I just didn't need to.) It's not about keeping it out of the hands of the less technical, it's about still keeping it educational for those of us who are. What kind of dystopia is it, when the preferences menu has but three options? Instead of a stylus, maybe you should just give me a crayon! Really, I think VLC has it right. Handbrake is pretty good. Gimp goes a bit overboard, but I can respect that. My VNC server? It's got like eight options, total. Torrent client? Maybe twice that many, spread over four panes. That's like putting four pieces of lettuce on four plates and telling me it's a salad! Mobile apps? Some of them don't even have options! If there are no options, why use an app? Just use the web! Hell, they don't even have a close option, some of them. What if I want to close it and restart it at the default screen? Task manager or reboot, that's what. 'Snot like it has a discernable back button. No options to configure it, either. I think people with mental handicaps should be allowed to use computers, just like everyone else. It doesn't mean you should design with them as your primary target audience. I'm pretty sure it took more work to take the buttons out than it took to leave them in there. I can't even begin to count the number of updates that have removed options. What the hell was that? You worked harder to make the application do less. I don't even understand that mentality. Sorry for the rant but this is a pet peeve. Imma start a Bring Back The Buttons campaign. It extends to other things, too. I noticed a friend's new television. Their remote had 3 buttons on it. It wasn't even broken, it came like that from the factory.
- p_l 9y ago
  There's even a specific concept in UX research related to that whose name escapes me at the moment, but generally boils to "discoverable interface" that is also open and encouraging the user to explore. This way you aren't "blocked" when you first open the application - but you're encouraged to learn and become expert.
pdkl95 9y ago
That isn't an argument for removing options or a "simpler" UI (which is usually a euphemism for "inflexible", "fewer features/capabilities"). Yes, non-technical people are often reluctant to experiment due to fears about breaking something. The solution to this problem is to have very clear boundaries around anything that actually does cause irreversible changes (or other "important" actions) while designing the rest of the UI in a way that emphasizes - explicitly, if necessary - that everything is ephemeral. Having a very clear boundary between "safe for experimentation" and anything permanent/important is the most important part. People will learn to experiment if you explain that nothing will be saved until they press the visually distinct "Save Changes") button. When relevant, explain they can use the clearly marked "reload"/"reset" button to return to the original ("fixed") version, so they have a reason to feal safe experimenting. "Magic"/"DWIM" interfaces and functionally overloaded UI features undermine confidence that experimenting is "safe", because they are hard to predict.
- vertex-four 9y ago
  The problem is that for some significant amount of users, they don't have the mental model to differentiate between running stuff in an Administrator prompt and playing about with their Word settings - one of them being dangerous and one of them not. We'd have to go right back to OS design principles in the first place to teach people that computers are not terrifying behemoths that are about to fall over at any given second, and then maybe that would follow through into our apps - but as it stands, they come with the default expectation that anything they do might result in needing to call IT. Funnily enough, ChromeOS gets that more-or-less right. There's barely anything you can do to a ChromeOS machine that makes it unusable, and nearly everything is ephemeral. Then you have the always-revertible settings in Google's web apps, and people love it.
  - jpindar 9y ago
    So hide the advanced options, like Firefox and its about:config. Even ask the user to solve some technical puzzle (hex math, perhaps) to prove they are worthy.

rocqua 9y ago

All of that is great for us, the people who got into computing way back when. Then, computing became useful, and had to be used by people who don't like to twiddle with settings. It seems to be the case that those are in the vast majority. Moreover, there is a vocal minority of people that tweak settings, break something, and then start complaining / requiring support. The end result is that our preferences are no longer the majority and thus are no longer catered to.

KGIII 9y ago
My toaster still has a slider to select how long I want to cook it. I wrote a long reply to the other person, I think I summed it up there. You can feel free to expand the thread and read it. It's one of my better rants, if I do say so myself. Even Linux is impacted by this. I keep hearing complaints about flat design, I don't even know what that is. I just want my buttons back. New users don't actually have to push them. Just because a button exists doesn't mean Joe Sixpack has to push it. Maybe if he pushes it enough times, people will stop fixing his computer and he will learn to fix it himself. Then, with time, he can learn to stop breaking it. Not that long ago, I got some help to write some scripts to grab the entirety of the Ubuntu man pages and automatically convert them to PDF and provide an index for them. When I posed my question, explaining where I was stuck and what my goal was, the first questions where, effectively, "Why would you want to do that? Nobody wants to do that!" It's a horrible state of affairs. I'm considering moving to GhostBSD. At least they still have buttons.
- iovrthoughtthis 9y ago
  'My toaster still has a slider to select how long I want to cook it.' And this is great, simple UI that means you can use it without a manual. If we we're to liken a lot of "configurable" software to the toaster it would: * A resistance range setting that defined the max and min resistance ranges of the internal heating element, implicitly measured in ohms. * A resistance setting to defines the current resistance from 0 - 100% where the percentage set gets it's temperature from the range defined with the resistance range UI element. * A timer setter that allows you to set the time-to-cook value via a ISO 8601 formatted duration. etc.