5 ms·

The user/customer is always right. If the people who would use IPv6 don't like it and don't want it, if they think it's bad, then it's bad. When forest ranger

The user/customer is always right. If the people who would use IPv6 don't like it and don't want it, if they think it's bad, then it's bad. When forest rangers observe hikers repeatedly deviating from the official trail at certain spots, the ranger understands this to mean the trail is wrong, and he re-designs it to accommodate the hikers. The forest ranger is able to do this because he understands what the trail is for: it's for the hikers, and he empathizes with and adapts to the hiker's needs, not his own needs, not his ego, not his whims. Never does the forest ranger defend a bad trail. The forest ranger takes feedback without ego, and he is able to do so because he does not personally identify with the trail, he identifies with the needs of the hikers. Engineers would do well to become more like the forest ranger. Many engineers seriously lack empathy for end-users, which results in the engineer creating inadequate products/services that don't meet the user's real needs. Even worse, when the product/service is criticized, when the engineer is given an opportunity to improve the product, the engineer instead blames the user, rather than himself, rather than adapt and recalibrate to the user's needs, he submits to his own ego, his own pride. It's this lack of empathy and user-blame that yields poor results, results like IPv6.

convolvatron 3y ago
Users aren’t cognizant of the design issues. Users don’t like ipv6 because it causes them operational problems. ISPs have done a really shit job of managing the transition.
agalunar 3y ago
I really like this – thank you for writing it! A related (but not quite the same, I think) idea is that people should not have to bend to technology; technology should bend to people. It can be difficult to design for people, though. People tend to over- or underestimate the frequency and severity of rare events, are susceptible to the normalization of deviance, and due to their finite nature, fail to consider wider or longer-term implications of their decisions. Going along with the analogy: forest rangers also have a duty to protect the forest (and in fact, I think this ought to take precedent over accommodating hikers) and they also want to guide hikers away from dangerous terrain or wildlife that underprepared hikers may be tempted to visit. I think the core idea here is "design around the way users actually behave, not the way they ought to behave".
jeroenhd 3y ago
> Many engineers seriously lack empathy for end-users, which results in the engineer creating inadequate products/services that don't meet the user's real needs. Ain't that the truth. Modern operating systems are getting worse by the year. That said, IPv6 has been significantly altered. SLAAC was fixed with two RFCs, one a decade IPv6 was designed, and another in 2015 for fixing oversights in duplicate address detection. DHCPv6 got updated with all kinds of options and it was already late to the party. RDDNS got added in 2007 and updated with more options in 2017. IPv6 Privacy Extensions got added when people brought up the privacy issues with SLAAC. People set up their own weird 4-to-6 translation mechanisms so various standards were introduced to cover any use case you may need. IPv6 as it was originally designed is practically unusuable today. The trails have since been adjusted and the hungry mountains lions are gone. The hikers don't even notice the difference from their old paths. However, park management decided that hikers should never go down the new and improved trail because they heard a story from their friend once that someone got lost there fifteen years ago, and some of them have lost the map to the start of the trail.

convolvatron 3y ago

Users aren’t cognizant of the design issues. Users don’t like ipv6 because it causes them operational problems. ISPs have done a really shit job of managing the transition.

agalunar 3y ago

I really like this – thank you for writing it! A related (but not quite the same, I think) idea is that people should not have to bend to technology; technology should bend to people. It can be difficult to design for people, though. People tend to over- or underestimate the frequency and severity of rare events, are susceptible to the normalization of deviance, and due to their finite nature, fail to consider wider or longer-term implications of their decisions. Going along with the analogy: forest rangers also have a duty to protect the forest (and in fact, I think this ought to take precedent over accommodating hikers) and they also want to guide hikers away from dangerous terrain or wildlife that underprepared hikers may be tempted to visit. I think the core idea here is "design around the way users actually behave, not the way they ought to behave".

jeroenhd 3y ago

> Many engineers seriously lack empathy for end-users, which results in the engineer creating inadequate products/services that don't meet the user's real needs. Ain't that the truth. Modern operating systems are getting worse by the year. That said, IPv6 has been significantly altered. SLAAC was fixed with two RFCs, one a decade IPv6 was designed, and another in 2015 for fixing oversights in duplicate address detection. DHCPv6 got updated with all kinds of options and it was already late to the party. RDDNS got added in 2007 and updated with more options in 2017. IPv6 Privacy Extensions got added when people brought up the privacy issues with SLAAC. People set up their own weird 4-to-6 translation mechanisms so various standards were introduced to cover any use case you may need. IPv6 as it was originally designed is practically unusuable today. The trails have since been adjusted and the hungry mountains lions are gone. The hikers don't even notice the difference from their old paths. However, park management decided that hikers should never go down the new and improved trail because they heard a story from their friend once that someone got lost there fifteen years ago, and some of them have lost the map to the start of the trail.