4 ms·

> Observe many people and you’ll see a maddening pattern of browser use: they will use any available method to get to google, and then they will put a url into

> Observe many people and you’ll see a maddening pattern of browser use: they will use any available method to get to google, and then they will put a url into the google search text box. Perhaps the address bar is inconveniently too high on the screen, or maybe they just don’t know what a url is. I would have been dismissive of this a few years ago, but I would have been wrong. I have seen many people including developers, _WEB_ developers, do this. Some of them can't be bothered to change their default search engine even though the option is available, it's almost muscle memory to type 'www.google.com' into the search box, and then click a result, and then search for what they wanted on google.com. Well they are grateful to me when I change their default search engine for convenience. But when pointing out that they can just type their search terms into the address bar, I am given the indulgent, polite "thank you but not interested in this microefficiency" smile.

blunte 5y ago
> "thank you but not interested in this microefficiency" This one. Blows my mind every time.
egeozcan 5y ago
> "thank you but not interested in this micro efficiency" smile I've seen a friend press caps lock, type a letter and press caps again to type capital letters. That's the smile I got when I introduced them the shift key. Also the smile my niece had when the car mechanic was explaining to him how he could spare some gas money by up-shifting early. Also the smile I had when my wife was giving me tips on how to plan meetings better. Humans suck :)
- blunte 5y ago
  When we follow the good suggestion, we don't suck at all. That's how humans should work. It's when we reject the wise advice because... because we're stubborn?... that is when it sucks. The thing about this url search is that they type the full url, sometimes even with the "http" bit (rarely https, but I digress), into the search field. then they get the results page a second or two later, and then _maybe_ they click the correct result if they didn't get mislead by some crappy SEO magic. That's a lot of extra work just to get to hopefully arrive at the same page they would have arrived at had they typed that url into the address field.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  It's the response of "I don't care about this thing, and I don't care about improving it, so please stop making me waste my attention on the thing I don't care about." In many people nowadays the scarce resource is not time or even money, but attention; and not every aspect in your life is worth your attention to try and improve it, that's premature optimization, wasting effort on improving something that ultimately is insignificant.
- OJFord 5y ago
  > Also the smile my niece had when the car mechanic was explaining to him how he could Apologies if it was just a typo, but in case English is a second/nth language just FYI that your 'niece' is your brother or sister's daughter; I think you mean 'nephew' (brother or sister's son). (And, er, if a niece 'identifies' as 'he/him', then I would assume (but who am I to tell them etc.) they would also identify as a son and a nephew thenceforward.)
  - egeozcan 5y ago
    Nephew it is, then! Thanks for the correction!
- mavhc 5y ago
  Everyone does the caps lock thing now, I blame phones, but they must know about Shift to type!"£$%^&*() etc, surely.
  - jlokier 5y ago
    Shift on a keyboard is different from shift on phones. On a keyboard you hold two keys down at the same time; on a phone you don't. This is why people use Caps Lock for typing capital letters, so they can press one key at a time.
account42 5y ago
> I would have been dismissive of this a few years ago, but I would have been wrong. I have seen many people including developers, _WEB_ developers, do this. Some of them can't be bothered to change their default search engine even though the option is available, it's almost muscle memory to type 'www.google.com' into the search box, and then click a result, and then search for what they wanted on google.com. I go to google.com rather than searching trough the address bar because the google.com homepage has a link to tell it "no, I did not actually want German google" whenever it forgets those cookies while the search result pages do not have that link. Of course for a while now it will still push localized results with no way to disable that.

blunte 5y ago

> "thank you but not interested in this microefficiency" This one. Blows my mind every time.

egeozcan 5y ago

> "thank you but not interested in this micro efficiency" smile I've seen a friend press caps lock, type a letter and press caps again to type capital letters. That's the smile I got when I introduced them the shift key. Also the smile my niece had when the car mechanic was explaining to him how he could spare some gas money by up-shifting early. Also the smile I had when my wife was giving me tips on how to plan meetings better. Humans suck :)

blunte 5y ago
When we follow the good suggestion, we don't suck at all. That's how humans should work. It's when we reject the wise advice because... because we're stubborn?... that is when it sucks. The thing about this url search is that they type the full url, sometimes even with the "http" bit (rarely https, but I digress), into the search field. then they get the results page a second or two later, and then _maybe_ they click the correct result if they didn't get mislead by some crappy SEO magic. That's a lot of extra work just to get to hopefully arrive at the same page they would have arrived at had they typed that url into the address field.
PeterisP 5y ago
It's the response of "I don't care about this thing, and I don't care about improving it, so please stop making me waste my attention on the thing I don't care about." In many people nowadays the scarce resource is not time or even money, but attention; and not every aspect in your life is worth your attention to try and improve it, that's premature optimization, wasting effort on improving something that ultimately is insignificant.
OJFord 5y ago
> Also the smile my niece had when the car mechanic was explaining to him how he could Apologies if it was just a typo, but in case English is a second/nth language just FYI that your 'niece' is your brother or sister's daughter; I think you mean 'nephew' (brother or sister's son). (And, er, if a niece 'identifies' as 'he/him', then I would assume (but who am I to tell them etc.) they would also identify as a son and a nephew thenceforward.)
- egeozcan 5y ago
  Nephew it is, then! Thanks for the correction!
mavhc 5y ago
Everyone does the caps lock thing now, I blame phones, but they must know about Shift to type!"£$%^&*() etc, surely.
- jlokier 5y ago
  Shift on a keyboard is different from shift on phones. On a keyboard you hold two keys down at the same time; on a phone you don't. This is why people use Caps Lock for typing capital letters, so they can press one key at a time.

account42 5y ago

> I would have been dismissive of this a few years ago, but I would have been wrong. I have seen many people including developers, _WEB_ developers, do this. Some of them can't be bothered to change their default search engine even though the option is available, it's almost muscle memory to type 'www.google.com' into the search box, and then click a result, and then search for what they wanted on google.com. I go to google.com rather than searching trough the address bar because the google.com homepage has a link to tell it "no, I did not actually want German google" whenever it forgets those cookies while the search result pages do not have that link. Of course for a while now it will still push localized results with no way to disable that.