7 ms·

>"The rat is always right." Green explained: "If you set up an experiment and the rat doesn’t do what you want it to do, it’s not because the rat is stupid, but

>"The rat is always right." Green explained: "If you set up an experiment and the rat doesn’t do what you want it to do, it’s not because the rat is stupid, but because you set up the experiment wrong. It’s the same with humans." I think this is important to remember in our field too. Too often I hear about a user story breaking down because "the user wasn't doing it right".. blaming the user is the wrong way to go -- you just set it up wrong.

globular-toast 6y ago
Reminds me of a story I saw on here about restaurant staff using a physical whiteboard marker to cross bookings off on the screen because the software didn't do what they want. Maybe someone can find the story (I can't). Users will always find a way to do what they need to do. The challenge is in finding out what they need to do because most of them would rather come up with their own solutions than come to the developers with a fully-specified feature request. I think this is why spreadsheets are so popular. They are never the best tool at any job, but users can bend them a million ways to do what they need to do.
- parliament32 6y ago
  https://javlaskitsystem.se/2012/02/whats-the-waiter-doing-with-the-computer-screen/ https://javlaskitsystem.se/2012/02/whats-the-waiter-doing-wi...
- to11mtm 6y ago
  Some places just plain don't care what the end users want. The worst version of this is when you're stuck in a shop where features are very obviously only dictated by managers. You can usually tell this is the case when the manager insists on being a MITM for all communication.
chongli 6y ago
blaming the user is the wrong way to go -- you just set it up wrong. Sometimes the user is wrong. If a person drives their car into a lake and drowns, do we say that cars are broken because they allow this? Or do we point to the millions of other drivers out there and say that driving on roads (and not into lakes) is the expected user behaviour? An extreme example, sure, but I think it also translates to software. Some people criticize vi/vim for being modal because it confuses beginners. They use this as the basis of an argument that vi is a bad way to edit text or that modal interfaces are bad in general. But tons of other people take the time to learn the vi system of modal editing and they love it so much that they write plugins for everything else in an attempt to replicate that experience. Who is wrong here?
- vertex-four 6y ago
  That vim dumps you into a screen with no guidance and where your keypresses appear to do nothing (or apparently random things!) would be the problem here. It would take very little to have it say "type :help to learn how to use this program" in the bottom of the screen when it starts up. It's also confusing because many Linux systems are set up by default to launch vim whenever another application requests an editor, even if the user uses something they are more comfortable with otherwise. This could be resolved by asking "which editor do you want to use?" instead of dumping the user into a randomly selected editor. You can build powerful systems without confusing people who often never intended to wind up in your program in the first place. You can even build them to show people how to use them.
  - menage 6y ago
    That's what the EDITOR environment variable is for.
    - vertex-four 6y ago
      Which is great... as long as you knew about that environment variable before you got into this situation in the first place. You're not exactly told about it during the install process or "first steps" guides for any distro I'm aware of.
  - jlg23 6y ago
    > It's also confusing because many Linux systems are set up by default to launch vim whenever another application requests an editor, even if the user uses something they are more comfortable with otherwise. export EDITOR=/my/fancy/editor
    - fennecfoxen 6y ago
      Way to miss the entire point.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
bsder 6y ago
And sometimes people just calculate probabilities wrong. People race trains all the time because they don't want to sit for 120 seconds. The problem is that losing that race means death. The is especially stupid for the trains cited. "Metrolink" is not some slow cargo train that you will be trapped behind for 15 minutes. A "Metrolink" is about 6 train cars and is generally moving at a decent clip--probably no less than 35mph. You're not going to be waiting long. LA has a much more significant problem with people walking in front of or committing suicide on the train tracks. Those cases generally far outnumber traffic accidents with the trains.

globular-toast 6y ago

Reminds me of a story I saw on here about restaurant staff using a physical whiteboard marker to cross bookings off on the screen because the software didn't do what they want. Maybe someone can find the story (I can't). Users will always find a way to do what they need to do. The challenge is in finding out what they need to do because most of them would rather come up with their own solutions than come to the developers with a fully-specified feature request. I think this is why spreadsheets are so popular. They are never the best tool at any job, but users can bend them a million ways to do what they need to do.

parliament32 6y ago
https://javlaskitsystem.se/2012/02/whats-the-waiter-doing-with-the-computer-screen/ https://javlaskitsystem.se/2012/02/whats-the-waiter-doing-wi...
to11mtm 6y ago
Some places just plain don't care what the end users want. The worst version of this is when you're stuck in a shop where features are very obviously only dictated by managers. You can usually tell this is the case when the manager insists on being a MITM for all communication.

chongli 6y ago

blaming the user is the wrong way to go -- you just set it up wrong. Sometimes the user is wrong. If a person drives their car into a lake and drowns, do we say that cars are broken because they allow this? Or do we point to the millions of other drivers out there and say that driving on roads (and not into lakes) is the expected user behaviour? An extreme example, sure, but I think it also translates to software. Some people criticize vi/vim for being modal because it confuses beginners. They use this as the basis of an argument that vi is a bad way to edit text or that modal interfaces are bad in general. But tons of other people take the time to learn the vi system of modal editing and they love it so much that they write plugins for everything else in an attempt to replicate that experience. Who is wrong here?

vertex-four 6y ago
That vim dumps you into a screen with no guidance and where your keypresses appear to do nothing (or apparently random things!) would be the problem here. It would take very little to have it say "type :help to learn how to use this program" in the bottom of the screen when it starts up. It's also confusing because many Linux systems are set up by default to launch vim whenever another application requests an editor, even if the user uses something they are more comfortable with otherwise. This could be resolved by asking "which editor do you want to use?" instead of dumping the user into a randomly selected editor. You can build powerful systems without confusing people who often never intended to wind up in your program in the first place. You can even build them to show people how to use them.
- menage 6y ago
  That's what the EDITOR environment variable is for.
  - vertex-four 6y ago
    Which is great... as long as you knew about that environment variable before you got into this situation in the first place. You're not exactly told about it during the install process or "first steps" guides for any distro I'm aware of.
- jlg23 6y ago
  > It's also confusing because many Linux systems are set up by default to launch vim whenever another application requests an editor, even if the user uses something they are more comfortable with otherwise. export EDITOR=/my/fancy/editor
  - fennecfoxen 6y ago
    Way to miss the entire point.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago

bsder 6y ago

And sometimes people just calculate probabilities wrong. People race trains all the time because they don't want to sit for 120 seconds. The problem is that losing that race means death. The is especially stupid for the trains cited. "Metrolink" is not some slow cargo train that you will be trapped behind for 15 minutes. A "Metrolink" is about 6 train cars and is generally moving at a decent clip--probably no less than 35mph. You're not going to be waiting long. LA has a much more significant problem with people walking in front of or committing suicide on the train tracks. Those cases generally far outnumber traffic accidents with the trains.