Ann Bartow recently had an entry over at Sivacracy about stupid computer prompts and error messages that she found at this site. She encourages readers to go there to see 'Many more illustrations that interface designers think users are idiots".
Ann, I hate to break it to you but programmers don't sit around thinking of new error messages to foist on users to make them feel like idiots. Either you're paranoid or you have no understanding of programming & computers. Stupid as the messages you point to are, they're quirks - probably the result of a lack of time, testing, and money - not malicious attacks on the ability of users.
Truth be told, many, if not most, users, on the other hand, are idiots when it comes to computers. Check out this site of "Computer Stupidities". Here's a couple classics:
Customer: "I received the software update you sent, but I am still getting the same error message."
Tech Support: "Did you install the update?"
Customer: "No. Oh, am I supposed to install it to get it to work?"
...
Customer: "I'm having trouble installing Microsoft Word."
Tech Support: "Tell me what you've done."
Customer: "I typed 'A:SETUP'."
Tech Support: "Ma'am, remove the disk and tell me what it says."
Customer: "It says '[PC manufacturer] Restore and Recovery disk'."
Tech Support: "Insert the MS Word setup disk."
Customer: "What?"
Tech Support: "Did you buy MS word?"
Customer: "No..."
While I cannot personally vouch for any of the stories at that site, I can tell you that they certainly fall within the realm of experience that I had working various help desks for 5 years or so. Ann, let me tell you some stories illustrating the supreme mastery of computers that many users have.
User is having a problem and I instruct him to close all windows. He gets up from his seat and closes all the windows of his house.
I needed a woman to click on the Start button and she said she couldn't find it nor had she ever heard of such a thing. After about 5 minutes, I'd gotten her as far as seeing the Taskbar - that grey bar usually at the bottom of a Windows desktop. I ask her to look for the clock so I can tell her to just go to the opposite side of the nice grey bar and find the Start button. After 10 minutes - 10 fucking minutes of my life wasted because she was a moron - the problem was finally solved. You see, a display of numbers giving you the hour of the day was "the time" for her. A clock, on the other hand, was a round thing with stick-like pointers that go around in circles. So she sat there for 10 minutes starring at a set of numbers that showed the time of day and she steadfastly denied it was a clock.
Dozens of times in my career, I encountered users of Windows who had never used the right mouse button. No biggie. But there were users who, upon right-clicking for the first time in their lives and seeing a context menu pop up, immediately turned off the computer thinking they had broken it.
Thinking CD drive tray was cupholder - true.
Unable to find the "Any" key - true.
I've helped dozens of users who were completely amazed that the Send button on an e-mail message actually sent the message to the recipient. And then there are the countless others for whom the concept of cutting & pasting will forever be foreign.
Ann, take support calls at a help desk for 6 months and tell me who's more idiotic: programmers who don't have the time, resources, or inclination to cover all the bases or people who don't understand that clocks tell the time regardless of their shape.
2 comments:
Given how much you hate users, perhaps you should try another line of work. If you are as nasty on the phone as you are here, you probably make the callers quite miserable.
That I hate users is most certainly not a given and not true. Of the tens of thousands of users I spoke to, many were a pleasure to work with. Some were extremely funny people while others were rude. Some remained silent while I worked while others proved to be very interesting people and provided great conversation. Some were simply ignorant (which is certainly no crime) while others lost their common sense upon calling tech support.
Try taking tech support calls for a few months and you will find that many people begin by telling you that they are "stupid when it comes to computers" or that they are "a complete idiot when it comes to computers". People readily say so using these very words. I don't think I was particularly nasty here and did very well as a hell desk analyst. Never once did I make threats unlike several callers who threatened to have me fired if I did not perform miracles over the phone or the one guy who angrily threatened my person.
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