4 ms·

My mother doesn't have a computer or mobile phone of any kind. Landline phone, TV and snailmail is her contact with the world from home. I did give her an old

My mother doesn't have a computer or mobile phone of any kind. Landline phone, TV and snailmail is her contact with the world from home. I did give her an old laptop but when the link to "her email" webpage was moved by the ISP she got the error message "It looks like your page has been moved." Innocuous enough error message right? But this caused her to freak out as clearly "someone" was watching and knew what "her" page was. Ergo "someone" was watching her on the internet. So she turned off the laptop and never opened it again. On the one hand, she has mental health issues including paranoia. On the other hand, she wasn't wrong!

wolpoli 4y ago
> But this caused her to freak out as clearly "someone" was watching and knew what "her" page was. Ergo "someone" was watching her on the internet. Even through her reasoning was wrong, she still managed to reach the right conclusion.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  Define "someone". A person? No.
nwah1 4y ago
As they say, just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
forgotmypw17 4y ago
>I did give her an old laptop but when the link to "her email" webpage was moved by the ISP she got the error message "It looks like your page has been moved." Innocuous enough error message right? >But this caused her to freak out as clearly "someone" was watching and knew what "her" page was. Ergo "someone" was watching her on the internet. So she turned off the laptop and never opened it again. >On the one hand, she has mental health issues including paranoia. On the other hand, she wasn't wrong! I would call this an accessibility issue, and a failure by the ISP to maintain access for someone who has trouble adjusting to changes in the user interface.
- _carbyau_ 4y ago
  While true, there is: "You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time" For simply changing their webmail page, most of us would adjust pretty quick. If I had been quick enough I could've simply updated her link and she never would have known. But when mental health comes to paranoia, doing things behind her back is a sure way to get offside. I have zero issues with what happened, it is life.
  - forgotmypw17 4y ago
    Would you say that building wheelchair ramps is also a waste of time, because you can't please everyone all the time, and they're only a small percentage of the population?
    - _carbyau_ 4y ago
      You are arguing shades of grey. 1. You only have so much effort to spend. 2. You won't be able to please everyone with it. IE result. Sure, for any large enough building (significant effort anyway to spend!) expecting a reasonable chunk of the population through the door a wheelchair ramp(decent chunk of populace affected) should be du jour. Hell, it is a wheelchair ramp not rocket science, I'd be happy to see them in a home building code for anywhere 2 or 3 steps are used. Little extra effort over the alternative (stairs) and get a result. Alternately, I love my mum but it is unreasonable to expect the world to bend to meet the sheer levels of disconnection-from-reality that mental health paranoia can go to. We can't treat everyone like they are Truman from the Truman Show. People have to be able to cope with change. When they can't, it is sad. But the world will keep changing anyway.
      - forgotmypw17 4y ago
        "The world" may keep changing, but "my applications" will continue to bend over backwards to accommodate every scenario I can imagine.
bitwize 4y ago
Proper UI/UX design is tremendously difficult, which is why software engineers should never attempt it in a user-facing product. When it comes to on-screen text, you must choose your words very carefully, because someone out there will read them the wrong way. Example: in the 90s, Windows, arguably one of the easiest commercial operating systems and certainly the most familiar, used to routinely frighten its users by falsely accusing them of crimes. "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down." If you're wondering why software UX these days is a colorful, foam-padded Barney-esque hellscape of smiling Alegria people and error messages of the form "Oopsie, we made a boo-boo :(", this is why.
- arvinsim 4y ago
  Thanks for showing your view. It does help in making me be more empathetic to UX/UI designers.
- Wowfunhappy 4y ago
  > Example: in the 90s, Windows, arguably one of the easiest commercial operating systems and certainly the most familiar, used to routinely frighten its users by falsely accusing them of crimes. > "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down." At first, I laughed. Then I realized, I think I remember seeing this error message when I was six years old, and being freaked out.
  - jrumbut 4y ago
    Imagine how lifelong law abiding citizens felt! I still don't understand how that message escaped being fixed. It wasn't rare. I would estimate a regular computer user would see it monthly? Maybe more?
    - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
      I mean, I can totally see how it would happen if you didn't have a UX team, and your developers didn't have any exposure to the concept. The message makes sense to a programmer. And, they couldn't easily fix anything post-release, right? (This also makes the original Macintosh interface all the more impressive in my eyes. System 1 is a masterpiece.)

wolpoli 4y ago

> But this caused her to freak out as clearly "someone" was watching and knew what "her" page was. Ergo "someone" was watching her on the internet. Even through her reasoning was wrong, she still managed to reach the right conclusion.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
Define "someone". A person? No.

nwah1 4y ago

As they say, just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

forgotmypw17 4y ago

>I did give her an old laptop but when the link to "her email" webpage was moved by the ISP she got the error message "It looks like your page has been moved." Innocuous enough error message right? >But this caused her to freak out as clearly "someone" was watching and knew what "her" page was. Ergo "someone" was watching her on the internet. So she turned off the laptop and never opened it again. >On the one hand, she has mental health issues including paranoia. On the other hand, she wasn't wrong! I would call this an accessibility issue, and a failure by the ISP to maintain access for someone who has trouble adjusting to changes in the user interface.

_carbyau_ 4y ago
While true, there is: "You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time" For simply changing their webmail page, most of us would adjust pretty quick. If I had been quick enough I could've simply updated her link and she never would have known. But when mental health comes to paranoia, doing things behind her back is a sure way to get offside. I have zero issues with what happened, it is life.
- forgotmypw17 4y ago
  Would you say that building wheelchair ramps is also a waste of time, because you can't please everyone all the time, and they're only a small percentage of the population?
  - _carbyau_ 4y ago
    You are arguing shades of grey. 1. You only have so much effort to spend. 2. You won't be able to please everyone with it. IE result. Sure, for any large enough building (significant effort anyway to spend!) expecting a reasonable chunk of the population through the door a wheelchair ramp(decent chunk of populace affected) should be du jour. Hell, it is a wheelchair ramp not rocket science, I'd be happy to see them in a home building code for anywhere 2 or 3 steps are used. Little extra effort over the alternative (stairs) and get a result. Alternately, I love my mum but it is unreasonable to expect the world to bend to meet the sheer levels of disconnection-from-reality that mental health paranoia can go to. We can't treat everyone like they are Truman from the Truman Show. People have to be able to cope with change. When they can't, it is sad. But the world will keep changing anyway.
    - forgotmypw17 4y ago
      "The world" may keep changing, but "my applications" will continue to bend over backwards to accommodate every scenario I can imagine.

bitwize 4y ago

Proper UI/UX design is tremendously difficult, which is why software engineers should never attempt it in a user-facing product. When it comes to on-screen text, you must choose your words very carefully, because someone out there will read them the wrong way. Example: in the 90s, Windows, arguably one of the easiest commercial operating systems and certainly the most familiar, used to routinely frighten its users by falsely accusing them of crimes. "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down." If you're wondering why software UX these days is a colorful, foam-padded Barney-esque hellscape of smiling Alegria people and error messages of the form "Oopsie, we made a boo-boo :(", this is why.

arvinsim 4y ago
Thanks for showing your view. It does help in making me be more empathetic to UX/UI designers.
Wowfunhappy 4y ago
> Example: in the 90s, Windows, arguably one of the easiest commercial operating systems and certainly the most familiar, used to routinely frighten its users by falsely accusing them of crimes. > "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down." At first, I laughed. Then I realized, I think I remember seeing this error message when I was six years old, and being freaked out.
- jrumbut 4y ago
  Imagine how lifelong law abiding citizens felt! I still don't understand how that message escaped being fixed. It wasn't rare. I would estimate a regular computer user would see it monthly? Maybe more?
  - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
    I mean, I can totally see how it would happen if you didn't have a UX team, and your developers didn't have any exposure to the concept. The message makes sense to a programmer. And, they couldn't easily fix anything post-release, right? (This also makes the original Macintosh interface all the more impressive in my eyes. System 1 is a masterpiece.)