3 ms·

Printers are complicated because they never work, their UI leaves a lot of guess work, you have to have some office lingo training to use them, and who knows if

Printers are complicated because they never work, their UI leaves a lot of guess work, you have to have some office lingo training to use them, and who knows if what the menu offers will work. Printers are special in that they’ll offer to copy in color but then you realize it was set up as grayscale by the vendor, or this one didn’t have the X option but the driver lets you do it, it’s the shittiest device and no one is stepping up to make one that doesn’t suck because people buy them anyway.

mrweasel 4y ago
Given how much money Xerox poured into UI research in 1970s it's quite amazing that copiers still have terrible user interfaces. They did all this research, all that work and the entire industry just forgot or decided that they didn't care. To be fair: copiers are weird. They exist in a weird intersection of mechanical machinery and computers. I do feel like much could be fixed with better software, but that's not really interesting once the device have been shipped. E.g. we have an IPv6 only office network. The manufacturer of our copier/printer did claim to support IPv6, but it was ever only tested once, eight years earlier. No regression tests was ever performed. It's a little besides the point, but illustrates the indifference towards the actual software embed in these things. For me the biggest issue is the lack of understanding of files and folders. Google Doc is used by I'd say most people under 25 today. It sucks, it teaches people to rely on search, and not even Google is good at finding stuff on that level. We use Google Docs at work, and as a result no one is able to find anything, partly because it's tricky to organize things in folders, unless everyone is onboard with that approach.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  >For me the biggest issue is the lack of understanding of files and folders. Google Doc is used by I'd say most people under 25 today. It sucks, it teaches people to rely on search, and not even Google is good at finding stuff on that level. It pains me to say this, but honestly? I think it's an elegant solution to a problem that doesn't want answers. The world at large has never, and I mean never, understood files and folders. Most people, both in the 20th and 21st centuries, create and leave all their files straight on the desktop. Teaching people about file structures never works because they don't care, far as they're concerned they have more important stuff they need to be dedicating their brain cells to. So the wiser(?) computer nerds giving up on trying to teach file structures and bending the knee to what the world at large wants, a singular place to store data and a quick way to find them, is an elegant solution.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    I tend to avoid too much Desktop pollution except to maybe keep something I'm referring to a lot. However... While I used to maintain a pretty granular file folder hierarchy, these days I mostly just dump things into an &Archive folder or one of a few other fairly generic folders and, yes, rely on search/knowing the approximate date. And I don't really have trouble with finding my own stuff. It's finding docs that have been shared with me in part because things I really need are mixed in with a zillion agenda docs and presentations from some meeting I didn't really care about.
  - prepend 4y ago
    > The world at large has never, and I mean never, understood files and folders. This doesn’t mean not to use an analogy to organize information. Most people don’t understand Dewey decimal, but that doesn’t mean libraries of the future should abandon it. Files and folders are at least teachable and correspond to many successful life patterns (eg, kids put their toys in their cubby and their friends put their toys in their cubby. This makes it easier to find the next day at school). I would like to see more work done on graphs of folders instead of just hierarchies. When google docs first started you could have lots of labels and organize the same file into multiple “folders.” But I think they did away with this when they switched to drive and had to represent as a folder structure. I think an easy way would be to have lots of bins and link them together with lots of edges that could be hierarchies or topics or subjects. If I have to project it onto a file system then use lots of symlinks to put the same file in multiple places.
- prepend 4y ago
  > It sucks, it teaches people to rely on search, and not even Google is good at finding stuff on that level. It’s weird how bad google search is within drive. Yesterday I was searching for my monthly expense tracker and couldn’t remember where I put it. I searched for “form” and nothing came back. I searched for “expense form” and nothing came back. I sorted by recent and couldn’t find it. I pulled up a list of all forms and saw it as I titled it “Monthly Expenses Tracking Form.” I cursed google, wondered briefly how search fouled up and went about my day. Thinking back now, I guess they are doing complete word tracking so searching for “expense” won’t find “expenses” but not sure why it didn’t return for “form.” I guess I can start embedding seo spam at the bottom of my own personal forms so I can find them.
adolph 4y ago
> Printers are complicated because they never work, their UI leaves a lot of guess work, you have to have some office lingo training to use them, and who knows if what the menu offers will work. Why is the 'office space printer scene' such a hit? . . . We have all had experiences where we worked ourselves to the bone to complete a document/spreadsheet/presentation/program only to experience extreme stress when trying to deliver it because the crummy printer won't do its job. . . https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-office-space-printer-scene-such-a-hit https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-office-space-printer-scene-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Space
- culopatin 4y ago
  Tangential but didn’t know Quora had a little AI chat answering questions now

mrweasel 4y ago

Given how much money Xerox poured into UI research in 1970s it's quite amazing that copiers still have terrible user interfaces. They did all this research, all that work and the entire industry just forgot or decided that they didn't care. To be fair: copiers are weird. They exist in a weird intersection of mechanical machinery and computers. I do feel like much could be fixed with better software, but that's not really interesting once the device have been shipped. E.g. we have an IPv6 only office network. The manufacturer of our copier/printer did claim to support IPv6, but it was ever only tested once, eight years earlier. No regression tests was ever performed. It's a little besides the point, but illustrates the indifference towards the actual software embed in these things. For me the biggest issue is the lack of understanding of files and folders. Google Doc is used by I'd say most people under 25 today. It sucks, it teaches people to rely on search, and not even Google is good at finding stuff on that level. We use Google Docs at work, and as a result no one is able to find anything, partly because it's tricky to organize things in folders, unless everyone is onboard with that approach.

Dalewyn 4y ago
>For me the biggest issue is the lack of understanding of files and folders. Google Doc is used by I'd say most people under 25 today. It sucks, it teaches people to rely on search, and not even Google is good at finding stuff on that level. It pains me to say this, but honestly? I think it's an elegant solution to a problem that doesn't want answers. The world at large has never, and I mean never, understood files and folders. Most people, both in the 20th and 21st centuries, create and leave all their files straight on the desktop. Teaching people about file structures never works because they don't care, far as they're concerned they have more important stuff they need to be dedicating their brain cells to. So the wiser(?) computer nerds giving up on trying to teach file structures and bending the knee to what the world at large wants, a singular place to store data and a quick way to find them, is an elegant solution.
- ghaff 4y ago
  I tend to avoid too much Desktop pollution except to maybe keep something I'm referring to a lot. However... While I used to maintain a pretty granular file folder hierarchy, these days I mostly just dump things into an &Archive folder or one of a few other fairly generic folders and, yes, rely on search/knowing the approximate date. And I don't really have trouble with finding my own stuff. It's finding docs that have been shared with me in part because things I really need are mixed in with a zillion agenda docs and presentations from some meeting I didn't really care about.
- prepend 4y ago
  > The world at large has never, and I mean never, understood files and folders. This doesn’t mean not to use an analogy to organize information. Most people don’t understand Dewey decimal, but that doesn’t mean libraries of the future should abandon it. Files and folders are at least teachable and correspond to many successful life patterns (eg, kids put their toys in their cubby and their friends put their toys in their cubby. This makes it easier to find the next day at school). I would like to see more work done on graphs of folders instead of just hierarchies. When google docs first started you could have lots of labels and organize the same file into multiple “folders.” But I think they did away with this when they switched to drive and had to represent as a folder structure. I think an easy way would be to have lots of bins and link them together with lots of edges that could be hierarchies or topics or subjects. If I have to project it onto a file system then use lots of symlinks to put the same file in multiple places.
prepend 4y ago
> It sucks, it teaches people to rely on search, and not even Google is good at finding stuff on that level. It’s weird how bad google search is within drive. Yesterday I was searching for my monthly expense tracker and couldn’t remember where I put it. I searched for “form” and nothing came back. I searched for “expense form” and nothing came back. I sorted by recent and couldn’t find it. I pulled up a list of all forms and saw it as I titled it “Monthly Expenses Tracking Form.” I cursed google, wondered briefly how search fouled up and went about my day. Thinking back now, I guess they are doing complete word tracking so searching for “expense” won’t find “expenses” but not sure why it didn’t return for “form.” I guess I can start embedding seo spam at the bottom of my own personal forms so I can find them.

adolph 4y ago

> Printers are complicated because they never work, their UI leaves a lot of guess work, you have to have some office lingo training to use them, and who knows if what the menu offers will work. Why is the 'office space printer scene' such a hit? . . . We have all had experiences where we worked ourselves to the bone to complete a document/spreadsheet/presentation/program only to experience extreme stress when trying to deliver it because the crummy printer won't do its job. . . https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-office-space-printer-scene-such-a-hit https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-office-space-printer-scene-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Space

culopatin 4y ago
Tangential but didn’t know Quora had a little AI chat answering questions now