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As far as I can tell from listening to stories from friends who aren't in tech circles, sorta halfway knowing how to use a computer still makes you a wizard in

As far as I can tell from listening to stories from friends who aren't in tech circles, sorta halfway knowing how to use a computer still makes you a wizard in most non-tech offices. And the newer generations are only barely better than the old ones, on average, so that's not putting an end to that state of things. I'm talking, like, you understand how external drives are represented, know how to cut & paste files & kinda know what a filesystem is and how it's laid out (not what a FAT table is or anything like that, I mean just how folders and links/shortcuts practically work and such). If you can do more than basic arithmetic in Excel, you're basically god. If you can write batch scripts (like this person, assuming it's true) or a little glue-code python, that's beyond what the others around you could even imagine. I'm not sure whether this is a UX failure or there's just too much necessary complexity to make things better. To some degree I think the basic metaphors we use for representing computer concepts and UI to ordinary users are badly underdeveloped, or in some way misguided. Certainly I think the "iOS is dumbing things down and making people unable to compute!" folks have things exactly backwards.

themodelplumber 5y ago
Yeah, that's really the direction to look in--the people themselves, what they're expressing in their way of work, and how they perceive their value. I used to do some psychometric testing for work and was mentored about "tech people" in terms of their/our psychology. When most people sort themselves by interest, they indicate a preference against technology, which can also be described as "novel organizations of things." But they also indicate against tech by indicating pro-other-stuff interests. So you can still find lots of offices full of non-tech people where people are organized, but using yesteryear's tech, i.e. yesterday's organizations of things. Plus they are using their other strengths. From a tech POV though, that inclusive view of others' strengths is sometimes overlooked, and it's an unfortunate truth that the tech-wise are somewhat naturally blinded to others' preferred leverage points in doing business. For example, the ability to give responsive, personal customer service. That service may involve some tech people, but the person giving the service may be at a significant advantage if they don't have a tech background, and have some improvisational or emotional-spectrum talent, or other reasonable problem-solving tools where tech would otherwise fill the skill gap. I always thought it was interesting stuff...
bittercynic 5y ago
This rings very true for me, but I think the disconnect is often an inability to formalize any task. Seems like often the same people who can't get a computer to do what they want also can't write coherent instructions for another human to do what they want.

themodelplumber 5y ago

Yeah, that's really the direction to look in--the people themselves, what they're expressing in their way of work, and how they perceive their value. I used to do some psychometric testing for work and was mentored about "tech people" in terms of their/our psychology. When most people sort themselves by interest, they indicate a preference against technology, which can also be described as "novel organizations of things." But they also indicate against tech by indicating pro-other-stuff interests. So you can still find lots of offices full of non-tech people where people are organized, but using yesteryear's tech, i.e. yesterday's organizations of things. Plus they are using their other strengths. From a tech POV though, that inclusive view of others' strengths is sometimes overlooked, and it's an unfortunate truth that the tech-wise are somewhat naturally blinded to others' preferred leverage points in doing business. For example, the ability to give responsive, personal customer service. That service may involve some tech people, but the person giving the service may be at a significant advantage if they don't have a tech background, and have some improvisational or emotional-spectrum talent, or other reasonable problem-solving tools where tech would otherwise fill the skill gap. I always thought it was interesting stuff...

bittercynic 5y ago

This rings very true for me, but I think the disconnect is often an inability to formalize any task. Seems like often the same people who can't get a computer to do what they want also can't write coherent instructions for another human to do what they want.