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Why Users Hate IT Products and Developers
bfwebster writes "The Washington Post has a commentary by one of its regular columnists, Marc Fisher, on why computer users hate what he terms 'our techie masters.' One of his more pungent and, I suspect, on-the-money comments: 'Computer training has become the living hell of the American workplace...each new system is more confounding than the last, and each new product strips away many of the advantages of the previous system.' Not a Luddite screed; more an angry outburst asking why commercial software systems are often so wretched. Worth reading and pondering."
Also, why in the hell are companies "upgrading" constantly? What ever happened to the days of buy something and use it. Hell, that's what I do for my tiny business. Every "upgrade" is expensive and time consuming. I'll just use what I have, thank you.
Perhaps when developing a new system the developers could take some time to study the methodologies that are used in the gaming market. After all Games are highly technical but must be very easy to learn and use to be popular.
If anything they might start thinking more about the end user then they do right now
Example - Sniffer. Great piece of software. Does everything you could want. But it's so confusing with random tabs all over the place, buttons that are similar but do different tasks in different parts of the program, and completely lacking in intuitive interface....
There is a good point there. Users don't always understand what they want, or can't think through the "unintended consequences" of a system change. They see the result, not the process.
But on the other hand, I know that us geeks have a tendency to read our own agenda into what we're asked to provide, and to ride hard on anyone who disagrees with our intepretation of "how it should be". We deliver a wonderful process, and if it has a good result, that's just icing on the cake.
I used to work with a group of professional architects, and I learned a lot from watching them take user input, question it, refine it, and try to turn it into a project. They spent a lot more time learning about the customer's personality, what sorts of things they liked and didn't like... and the ones who were consistently loved by customers were the ones who were the best listeners.
(A nickle to the first person to identify the person I quoted above!)
Was anyone else reminded of that SNL skit with the Obnoxious tech-support guy? I can't remember the name, ah well.
I think a lot of this has to do with the elitist mindset of a lot IT workers. They see themselves as the masters, the ones who ought to be in charge because so much of the work is done through systems they built. But really, they should think of themselves as servants, trying to build the best system they can to support the end-users. After all, in a business setting, the end users are the ones who produce the true value of that business. IT people are just there to make it easier.
I think this attitude is seen here on slashdot a lot, I see posts by people who feel they are entitled to set policy because they can implement policy at the touch of a few buttons. But that's asinine, policy should be made by people paid to set policy. The IT person's job is to implement policy on a technological level.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
... entropy is getting the better of us. Have never been in a devshop where that wasn't the case. Most developers I've met have had the knowledge but most imho lack the discipline.
Always ask yourself this before you commit (to CVS): "Will this commit add value to the program?" - or have you introduced new weak ideas or hacked around to get a new feature introduced in a hurry. Abstractions live, details and entropy kill.
So 20 years ago I would have had to pay more for an airline ticket than today, to fly to Washington, to by a copy of the WP, to read whatever this bozo has to say. Now I can do it sitting at my desk at the arse-end of the world withing seconds of him hitting the "publish" button. No progress or convenience there that I can see.
-- Free software on every PC on every desk
I am gonna have to say its a good call. However its also important to remember that to people who don't make a job, hobby or life out of technology its disorienting to them. I used to have to turn the computer on for my mom because it intimidated her so much. I had to literally press the button that said on for her. Why? Cause she grew up in a time when the most technological thing out was an electric type writer. It took years to get my dad to get internet, now I have him surfing from an Ipaq, with wireless networking, through the DSL in my house(HE LOVES IT, he can sit in bed at night and surf the net when he can't sleep, he can use his wireless modem to check his email on the train ride to work). I'd say that is pretty impressive for a 60+ year old who 5 years ago couldn't type or navigate windows 98. The people using the new software need to be trained it, the training may take but all of 10 minutes, but if no one says: "Some things are different, some are better, some are worse. Here are the basics. . . " People just get confused and frustrated and its a waste everyones time and $$.
I worked on large systems for large companies. However I never got to meet anyone that actually used the product. We were on the forth revision of software by the time I left.
I was basically the main coder. I was pretty good at my job, but I would get 100 page technical specs, 70 pages of which would describe how on the front page this dolphin would swim from one side to the other. On a company intranet. sigh.
Several years later I saw the said company at a careers fair. I mentioned that I wrote quite a lot of their intranet, and how it was doing. They said there were still many problems with it - and I wasn't surprised.
The trouble was that I had to go through my boss, who went through the company bosses, who went through the top level managers. The end users weren't consulted at all.
Also everyone wanted to see results _now_, requiring fast development.
Anyway, I've rambled enough.
And they say the techies are the ones lacking communications skills? How about people ask for what they actually want; maybe they'll have a better chance of getting it that way...
There are those of us who strive for technical excellence like those in IT. There are those who strive for stability and status quo, like end users. The most important are those like me (help desk) who bridge the gap. We are translators between the user and tech. What we have come down to is a new industry, the Inbetweeners...
There is plenty of evidence in IT history to support this, but it is not that easy to cast such a blanket observation. I also feel I have seen plenty of evidence of usability specialists designing over technical user interfaces.
One phenomena that has not been adequately researched is the user interfaces designed by the developer/techies themselves. I know a lot of people are going to say this is the problem, but I ask this question, why is it that of the many web sites out there, the ones that are designed by developer/geek/hackers, the blogs, etc, these seem to have much more clean, elegant and easy to understand functionality than the majority of other sites? I know this is an over generalisation, but I do feel there is a strong point here.
Also, I could go on and on about how developers have been too typecast in this position. How many of us have told management and business analysts of the problems inherent in changing the product, but you learn to keep your mouth shut if you want your job. Your opinion is not wanted, just shut up and sit in the corner and code.
If you can sell a new version of the product, with the training, this is how you make money. Without the upgrade path, there is no future in normal commercial software. You have to produce product, which requires new marketable features. And the shit comes back on the developer, who is often the one person who is very aware of the problems with this whole process.
I could write essays about all this... but that is for another place and time.
Take anyone off their current WinXP/P4 1GHz+ box and put them back on a 33MHz 486 running DOS or Windows 3.11 and force them to use it to do work for a week. Not even anything involving networking or receiving files from outside sources, just let them create a few Office documents and try to work with them. At the end of the week, ask them whether or not they still miss the "good old days". I'll bet anything they'll shut up.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
The other side of that coin, since I work in QA, is that the developers don't want to listen when you tell them the way they designed it is hard to use and/or doesn't make sense.
I recently tested an FTP type program where the developer put the DELETE button right next to the TRANSFER button. You could actually have the pointer over the TRANSFER button but it was selecting DELETE since the buttons were so close. On top of that, there was no delete confirmation dialog so you could think that you transferred the file when you actually deleted it from your machine. I complained heavily to the design group and got lots of flak for it. I suggested putting the Refresh button between the two but they didn't want to do that because their design was PERFECT in their eyes. Their decision was to just add a delete confimation dialog that was turned off by default and had to be turned on in an obscure preference screen.
The largest problem is that there is no time or budget to review and improve the human experience on software products. In the "Skate or Die" world of software development, finishing touches are always set aside for the next version of the product.
Software companies aren't profiting on the fact that their programs were the easiest to use. They make money buy selling their products with shinier chrome and more options than the other guys. Even worse, companies will try to glue on new shiny bits and pieces of bought-out software onto their product and hoping to get it to work. And if they get it out first, they'll get all of the customers who might need those features (and drag in those who were happy with the old one but need to upgrade because the new formats are no longer compatible).
Selling the support contracts makes companies a pretty penny too.
There is VERY little incentive to improve user interfaces or simplifying tasks. Apple has been able to tap into this market from the beginning, but even now is derided by those "in the know" as more toy than tool.
Software engineers are a problem too. The "cool" and "sexy" obscure features of a product appeal to most programmers while the rather mundane problems of fixing bugs and ease of use fall to the wayside.
Even customers are a problem. Management wants to be able to keep tabs and increase production by having new and different reports created and all information tracked. And they are willing to buy software from a different company (with an imcompatible format) to get that information. Plus demands for customization increases the level of task obscurity. Oh, and if they don't spend the money for the upgrade, they lose the money in next year's budget.
It's insanity.
"I may be Love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."
I designed a computerized inventory system a few years ago at work. It really worked and all but it also took longer to use than the old pencil, paper and catalog system it replaced. My co-workers at first chaffed at the paper-work and soon outright sabatage.
My boss had assigned me an hour block of time for training on my baby, where I stood up in front of the whole office and said 'You guys hate this all ready don't you? Everybody agreed, I continued, 'It was one of those good ideas that just don't work out in real life, just because you can put a screw in a board with a hammer doesn't mean you should throw ou your screw drivers; we doing it the old way from now on'. Now my ideas are respected more than ever because people now I'm not above giving up on a lost cause.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
i'm not even an engineer, and i recognize that this is the worst explanation for anything, ever.
who the fuck modded this up?
rubbish.
here's an alternate explanation: the masses are fucking lemmings and sheep. including most of us here, and that goes double for the parent poster.
you have a few that dare to obtain knowledge on a subject that is far more profound then your average dumbass walking down the street will ever have.
so you take one smart engineer (or hell just one smart person...doesn't even have to be an engineer) and have him peppered with questions from 1000 stupid people.
he knows in the back of his mind, that to take the time and give enough background information to just one person, so that he could provide a reasonable answer is going to take a month.
1000 people times 1 month ea.
that's 1000 months.
with that recipe, it's no wonder that i see real engineers behave somewhat antisocially, standoff-ish and disdain people who won't lift a fucking finger to expand their critical thinking by one fucking iota.
mindless lemmings...fuck em.
...to make it easier on IT to manage user's systems. Thousands of
ugraded Dell PCs with OS's upgraded to XP.
Let em upgrade as they will. I stopped caring when they took the
SparcStations off of engineering's desks and gave us all Win98. I
don't care anymore. I edit all text in emacs and then copy and paste
the result into the appropriate Companywide Enterprise Solution (Lotus
Notes, Word, etc.).
"Its not that I don't want to learn the new stuff Bob, it's that I
just don't care."
I think that the increasing complexity and 'function-holism' of software actually is detrimental to efficient computing. Just finding a simple virus scanning program is near-impossible these days. Every piece of software wants to embed itself into the registry (assuming a win setup for average-joe users) and the quick launch bar, to remain in memory, hog ressources, and generally be a nuissance. All I want is to click a button, scan for malicious code and remove it, and close the program when I'm done. That's why I think F-Prot is actually a superior product than some huge, bloated Norton-style suite.
I just want straight-forward programs that don't fsck with me. I *still* use command-line archiving tools (pkzip, etc) over the proper Win versions because I find the latter too greedy and invasive. I use them for the same reasons I use Google as a search engine: clean, efficient, and not evil. But every new version of any given program is compelled to add new 'features' to justify its existence.
I can't pretend to speak for the average officer user. I have mid-range knowledge of computers and run Win at home by choice (availibity of music-production software was a major consideration). But for what it's worth I think that contemporary software design is getting top-heavy. I prefer clean and simple minimalist design-- the Google or F-Prot aesthetic.
iopha
Quote:
No, offense, but I have interpersonal skills. What I lack is patience for attitudes like these, where "it's all your fault". Half the answer is that techies need to be more empathetic. The other half of the answer (missing from the article) is that users need to meet techies halfway, and at least try to understand what the computer does. Not mind you how to create animated transitions with sound for their power point slides, but the basics of computer usage, like we used to get in 8th grade computer literacy. Directories, commands, arguments, files, etc...
When I run across a user who actually tries, I am willing to do a lot more explaining than for the marketing guy who seems unable to use his docking station...
If you think you can hurt me again, you're wrong. I left my heart in my other pants.
I'm an attorney at a law office with about 16 computers. We are still using WordPerfect for Windows 6.1. Why?
Because EVERY new release since then, of both WordPerfect and Word, hasn't given me (I make the IT decisions) a sufficiently good enough reason to ask the staff to learn how to use a new system.
Contrary to those bashing Microsoft, this isn't MS's fault, and it's not a case where people using Macs just don't have this problem. It's really simple - Once you get used to a system, you don't want to change, as long as the system you know does what you want.
We've gone though multiple changes in software - WordPerfect for Windows 6.1 was much easier to use than WordPerfect 5.1, ACT! has improved over time, and we've more or less kept upgrading Windows whenever Bill Gates wanted more money. Except for ME, each windows upgrade was worth it, from a usability and reliability standpoint.
But we still use WP6.1, even though it has 8.3 filenames and an automated template system that's crippled (and was finally finally fixed in WP10). Not only is this program reliable and does what we need it to do, it's faster than any of its successors because it was written for computers running 80386's.
Also, I have to say that the WP6.1 file dialogue boxes, are just plain better than anything I've seen since. Who in the hell thought that a sideways scrolling file-open dialogue box filled with useless icons was a good idea, especially when you can have really long filenames that take up half the screen?
Before I upgrade our software, there's got to be a reason better than "there's a new version out". The new software has to fill a need that isn't filled by the old software, or it has to solve serious reliability problems.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
Ive said this time and time again to people.
When they ask me "Oh, you're a computer science major, do I need to upgrade my computer?"
After supressing the urge to repeat my 'comp sci != IT != retail' rant, I ask them what they do with thier computer. The fact is unless you are compiling, doing a lot of graphics work (3-d modeling, not pics from you digital camera), or running the hottest bad king shit FPS uberGame of the week, YOU DONT NEED A TOP OF THE LINE SYSTEM.
Proof by example:
My uncle/aunt. Living in a rural part of ohio, they have phones and power, but no sewer or cable. The got a dirt cheap 450mhz generic wintel. They use it to type letters, send email, and do some banking all via *cringe* AOL. I would utterly slaughter that computer, but for them they simply dont need anything faster, and wont for at least another decade.
The author of this article. As a journalist he would need a word processor, the internet (for research), and an interface to the article submission system (assuming they even use one).
My parents. A little more savvy than most people their age, but still the only upgrades that they have needed to thier 500mhz Gateway were peripherals, a good scanner, a digital camera, and a fax/copier/scanner. In a year or so I can see them needing a new hard disk and/or a CD-R because of the massive amount of data that theyve collected that could stand to be backed up and/or moved off site (documents, picutres, finances,etc)
Me. I do some programming on my own machine, some graphics editing (photo retouches in photoshop, mostly practice for my day job at the photo lab), and the occasional FPS or RPG gaming session. My recent video and sound upgrades were only done becuase I was offered a good deal on a trickle down upgrade (friend got latest and greatest, i got something better than what i had).
Im hesitant to push this idea because if it wasn't for the 'ooh new shiny and fast' attitude that pushed people like this to make sales, I would be paying a lot more for my next hardware upgrade. Dont blame us grunts, we don't like working to give you worthless upgrades any more than you like to have to constantly learn new things.
There simply isn't that much sophisticated (we're not talking about peachtree here) software out there that runs on the Mac.
How about Oracle? Sybase? Maya? Mathematica?
What do you consider sophisticated? I can't tell you how many unix sysadmins, java folks and web developers I know that have moved to Mac OS X in the last year or so.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
That's why I do one-on-one training with every professor when change them over from mac OS9 to OSX. Yes, it kills 30 minutes per user out of my day, but I have found that my tech support calls have plummeted. The phone is rining every 30 minutes. Now, if I get 3 calls per day it is a bad day.
Why is the author so ticked off about receiving training? If you give someone training they're better equipped to handle the new equipment/software and they don't need to call IT as often to have their hand held. Yes, software evolves. Get over it. Be glad that your employer thinks enough that they provide training, many don't.
I thik the author of the article needs to go to the clue line and get a clue.
many WIN users i see, only use email, the web and word. they can barely use those because they don't even know how to use a file system, let alone something more fancy.
Ain't it the truth! MS would do us all a world of good if they could include a tutorial on filesystem fundamentals with their systems. I'm sure many of you know how exasperating it is to have so many users who have one directory for everything, then when they accidently put something somewhere else, they totally freak out and think the computer has somehow eaten their data.
When I was a LAN admin several years ago, I used to try to inoculate myself against such things by providing a tutorial (both live and as a website) on what I called The Fully Qualified Filename. I would demonstrate in simple terms exactly what a directory tree was, and how you could make it work for you (re: grouping similar documents together, or grouping my topic). I would also show that everything on the computer was a file, and how to make that work for you as well.
Understanding your filesystem is fundamental to having less troublesome computing.
This is an ex-parrot!
I'm still a student and thus largely insulated from this sort of thing. Still, I think that people are looking at the wrong issues here.
First it's more likely that people are simply pissed off. They're not the head jock anymore, they're drone #2817-G and noone gives a fuck who they dated in high school. Even worse the people they used to pick on back then matter now. They're doing something and rather than spend the minimal ammount of time required to understand how to use something they'd rather get pissed about it. "That damn geek expects me to learn this shit? I've got better things to do than read a manual writen by some science club loser."
Second is that these training classes don't seem entirely necessary. Indeed there's a lot of bloatware out there with obscure and pointless features that are a pain in the ass to get at. Still, you don't need to spend 8 hours having some idiot try to teach you how to use them. In some highly technical applications it may be necessary and useful to spend some time in training, but you probably don't need it for the next version of Word. Seriously. My school teaches 8 week courses on how to use Word and Netscape and they're unnnecessary crap. Back in high school there was a "Technology Literacy" class that would spend a day explaining the basics elements of the Windows UI, one day was spent almost entirely on right-click context menus, another on signing up for a Hotmail account and e-mailing someone. Not the theory behind any of this, just the practical ability to do it. People will try to teach anything whether it's necessary or not.
You know what I do when my gaming machine gets doggy as hell, and crashes a lot? I format the hard drive and re-install a fresh copy of windows 2000. Seems to fix the problem every time. Screw upgrading to XP, or windows 2004 in a year, I will stick with this more stable 3 year old service pack 3 OS. It runs well on my very outdated 1ghz machine.
I don't blame the OS as much as the ENDLESS DAMNED SPAM AND AUTOMATIC SPYWARE INSTALLS. Shit, there is always company x that wants to embed itself into the browser and log every page I go to. And this damned 'save' app that will not die.
My two favorite common features are undo/redo and cut/copy/paste. In fact I believe that if either of them was to dissapear from the face of computing tommorrow, I'd commit suicide. Yet most of the end users I know don't use either. Ever. Is it really that complicated? Do people really enjoy typing so much that they'd rather not use these features? No, I doubt it. I think maybe we're right.
I also enjoy the way I can learn what an app does by poking at menu options. I figure if an app can do something but it isn't obvious from either the menu or some simple sub-dialog or something, then I don't care if it does it. I think maybe we're right.
I think there are two kinds of people in the world: those who see something and try it, and those who don't notice anything until they're told what it is, what it does, how to use it, why they should try it, and what to do if they have a question. I don't think the latter type understands the former, and I know for sure that I don't understand the former. But I think maybe we're right.
We think the way to write good software is to make it intuitive, consistant within itself, and consistant within a group of similar programs (use common keys for cut/copy/paste, for example), but I don't think it much matters. Alot of people would look at a program with one menu option that says "Click here to see a funny joke", get glossy-eyed, and ask "what does it do?" They don't even know how to find the online help. It might as well be hidden right in the middle of a menu labeled "Help". Could it be we're right?
Maybe end users really are dimmer than bozo.
Instead, we hear that kind of thing about software developed in-house. I believe the "hatred" is a combination of the user never (or rarely) getting what they really want, and frustration when they realize part of the blame rests with them, and IT can't wave a wand and make it easier for them.
The unfortunate part is it's a double-edged sword, because IT often works very hard to give the user what they ASKED for... but what they requested isn't what they WANT. This is not a new problem (and all the CMMing, SixSigmaing, UPMing, RUPing and other process crap in the world isn't helping -- sorry, pet peeve). Being non-technical, the user doesn't know how to ask for the right things. They don't know how to think critically about a design they firmly insisted upon in the early phases of the project, which then turns out to be cumbersome and hard to use. They don't understand how non-technical people like themselves respond to user interface issues, so they demand weird features, and surprise, nobody can figure out how it works when it's deployed. They can't identify bottlenecks in the processing flow, but by god they WANT that flow, and then the bottleneck is IT's fault.
Indeed, my current employer relies heavily on legacy systems, some pieces of which are 30 years old... there are plenty of cases where we're asked to reengineer something, but the business users really aren't even sure how that part of the business actually works! Sometimes the best information we get is, "Then we go to green screen XYZ and put an 'R' in this field, and we don't know what happens next". Then it's up to us to track down how it actually works, backtrack WHY it's done that way, and figure out what WE need to do in the new app... all within the original deadline. Very often in medium and large companies, users have the *final* word when it comes to in-house applications, and very headstrong non-technical people end up making those decisions, so whatever those people want GOES -- and IT gets the blame if those people don't guess correctly. I've seen it at several large companies -- as far as I can tell, it's just The Way.
On the flip side, IT is to blame (sort of) because we are often in the position of having to deny requests, reduce functionality, or take other shortcuts just so we can meet immutable deadlines and budgets. The real world often does nasty things to Dream Projects, and IT is usually the ones who have to deliver the bad news. Time to wake up, your dream is over, and your budget isn't big enough to buy what you've requested.
Finally, there is a nasty bit of hidden overhead that users rarely take into account. When it comes to writing custom in-house software, IT must wear two hats. We need an intimate undestanding of programming, databases, networks, and more esoteric things like good UI design, various levels and types of architecture, the available frameworks and libraries, OOP theory, and so on... but then on top of that, we have to learn the user's job, too. In fact, since our "work product" has to CORRECTLY support, improve, emulate, and/or reproduce their "work product", we often have to learn their job BETTER than they know it. Little details they can ignore, or track down when it becomes an issue -- all must be accounted for UP FRONT before you can safely build a new system to do that job. This requires serious effort, no small amount of brains, dedication, and talent, and often receives no recognition whatsoever. The user thinks IT overstates the difficulty of our jobs (because after all, THEY do their job every day, and "all" we have to do is what they do every day), and consequently their opinion of us goes down at every turn.
This reminds me of my current project. I asked the users how they wanted the software to handle a rare but financially serious condition which I discovered was a possible case given a certain series of inputs. The user was baffled. "But that almost never happens," was the best reply I could get for several *weeks*. They had a very difficult time understanding that we still had to account for these rare cases. I could have taken the easy way out and just thrown up a warning (or some equivalent shortcut), which in this case would have caused a minor disaster at some point in the future -- but instead we eventually (slowly) tracked down the right way to handle the condition, and now it's a documented process which the application addresses transparently. Yet the user's frustration with IT inched up another notch in the process, and somehow, it's *our* fault.
I believe *this* is the kind of scenario that lead to the newspaper article we are discussing, not the occasional MS Office update.
Microsoft's Nathan Myrrhvold made a hilarious statement in an interview recently. When asked for details about Microsoft's processes for changing features in Office, he replied, "Software sucks because users demand it."
It's sad, but true.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
I have to agree on at least some of his points, and also have to point out that user interfaces have, IMHO, gotten worse. The real problem is (apparantly) a rush to make users think 'hey cool, I'm using a computer!' rather than to make it actually easy to do things.
For example. Progress Bars. Progress Bars are very neat and useful. However, Progress Bars that do not rise at a constant real-time rate are useless to the user. What do they care that your program is 75% through the list of necessary operations, when the ones done so far took 5 seconds but the last one might take 2 hours? This is combined with the stupidity of the progress bar at 100% - you should NEVER SEE that, as when the progess is 100% the task is done and the progress bar should disappear. And yet one of the worst culprits for both of these is InstallShield, which has been around for years and puts this stupid convention onto almost EVERY PIECE OF COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE.
Another one is the abuse of words in user interfaces. Having an "OK" button is fine, if you're asking me for settings or to confirm an operation. But "This application has failed and will close." errors should not have an OK button on them, because the user should not be requied to indicate than this sort of thing is OK - it isn't! Yea, I know, any techie will tell you that it's 'just a convention' but why use that convention? Why not use the totally neutral "Dismiss", as used by UNIX? Likewise, in just about every application, pressing the "Help" key actually causes information, rather than help, to appear - so why not call the button "Info"?
Even worse is the responsibility shifting. Get a bluescreen on WinME and hit Ctrl-Alt-Del, and you get: "The system is busy waiting for the Close Programs dialog box to be displayed." That sounds a bit like me saying "I'm waiting for my leg to move." What, other than "the system", is going to display the dialog - the CRT fairies?
When this sort of thing is sorted out, then we can start talking about apps being user friendly. Until then, I'll be doubtful.
Then ask yourself why the result of "right click on Network Neighborhood" changed from windows NT to windows 2000. Any good reason? Anyone?
There is this thing called a treadmill. The big boys want to keep the little boys on one. That way, they keep us more docile and easily manageable.
I relate vey strongly to your question. I used to do a fair amount of tech support for an small ISP. I had a picture of W95 dial up networking in my head. I could tell people what to click and what they should be seeing from memory.
W95 was the last version of windows that I used for myself before moving to linux.Making changes for increased functionality is probably OK. Making changes for "increased productivity" might just barely be ok. Making changes in most cases is treadmill thinking in action.
If we invalidate your skills, we can make you pay us again for training and certification - to do the same job as before mind you. For those of us who dont pay for training and don't get certified, we still pay with our time.
This is also part of the plan. Keep the little guys forever learning the same things and they can never have enough time left over to learn the things they need to get ahead and perhaps pose a threat to the big boys positions.
I think this same process plays out with products that are obsolete or break down before they should. And don't start with how credit cards are used to keep that old treadmill powered up and generating desired results.
N.B. It does not take a conspiricy for this to play out, just the big boys looking for what is in their short term best interests.
I do believe that software advances have left many a user out in the cold because of the inability to have their desire to learn a new tool match the speed at which the tools are revamped. I can't help but think, however, that the level of support currently provided for users allows them to get by without putting in any real individual effort. I would argue that support people do too much for their users. Technology may have moved too quickly for the average user, but it has provided a larger subset of support professionals who don't aren't represented by SNL-parodied stereotypes. I think all of us who do tech-support have tried to explain an underlying logic behind a process only to be told, 'just do it, I'll be getting coffee'.
Personally, I am an end-user and not a techie (right, so what am I doing here? don't ask!). Now, granted, I'm a tad more computer-savvy than the average end-user (having a disgustingly genius-like programmer for a husband helps), but even I fail to understand how tech staff can be so arrogant and condescending. Do the techs here think they can handle MY job? No? Then don't try to make me feel stupid for not being able to do THEIR job, which, in essence, is to help me use the technology I need to do my job.
Now I know that it's standard for techs to assume that the user is a moron, because, quite often, the user IS a moron. However, there are those of us who do have a slight clue what we're doing. So we can't understand root code, and we may not know what's wrong the first time our printer starts spewing out toner and blinking furiously, but that doesn't mean we're unintelligent or incapable of understanding.
I've never had training for any piece of software I've ever used, but I think I manage all right. I haven't had too many problems upgrading between different versions (I admit, it baffles me when the developer removes a certain feature for no apparent reason). All in all, even though I do basic checks before calling tech support to save them trouble, they tend to be even MORE annoyed when I seem to have a clue as to what I'm talking about. Seems they don't like knowledgeable users - it ruins their god-like image.
It's arrogant beyond belief to assume that all users are idiots. I know that's probably not what the parent post intended, but it's the end effect that counts. If you realize that your user isn't following quite as quickly as you're explaining, just slow down. Be patient. How would you have liked it if your grade two math teacher had just plowed through long division rather than explain it to you? Would you like it if someone pushed you away from your keyboard saying "Never mind, just let me do it"? The personal skills, with MOST tech support (not all, there are many good people out there), just aren't there. It's the truth. Deal with it.
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If I had had to summarize it into two pieces of advice, I would say:
Try this exercise....
Pick ten of your friends or relatives and visit their homes. Make it a mix of people who are techno-savvy and not techno-savvy.
1. Use their phone to make a phone call from their house.
2. Turn on their television, tune to a local channel, and get sound and audio.
Now total up the time that you needed to perform those tasks and ask yourself how much longer it took today than it would have taken 30 years ago. Even the most technically astute of us usually have to pause to find the right button to enable "Talk" on a telephone or input the broadcast or cable signal to a television that is not our own.
Amazing that while we have a lot more capability in our telephones and televisions, the most simple things have become more difficult because of the "bloatware" we've added.
First rule of software and all types of engineering should be: Don't make the user feel stupid.
JoAnn
Thus speaketh the pundits:
"Techies, professors conclude, must act more like psychoanalysts; they must learn to "appreciate the difference between what people say and what they mean."
and...
"tech folk "would need both technical and interpersonal skills."
Over and over I hear end users whining about how difficult it is to understand computers, when the apparent total extent of their computer knowledge revolves around the top four commands on the file menu. Try to show them something new (i.e., Copy/Paste), and you're rewarded with a lengthy lecture on how things used to be, and how much better it was when ignorance was bliss. While that may have once been true, the age of Internet-everything demands at least some form of end user intellectual responsibility, or something or someone gets seriously hosed.
And it's not as if this stuff is difficult. The last time I looked, ALL of the computer manuals and help files in my office were written in bloody ENGLISH! What, in the name of Christ, is so difficult about reading?!?
I think its high time end users changed their attitudes and took a few steps towards learning how to deal with technical staff.
Geeks are continually being fed lines similar to those above at just about every stage of their careers, yet there is very little being said to end users about their attitudes to "techies". Part of the problem, as I see it, is that most end users are unwilling to take on any extra knowledge that doesn't directly apply to their defined job function. As a result, anything a "techie" offers in the way of improvement is viewed with either outright distrust, or cagey cynicism.
For many, it is far easier to marginalize technical staff ("Oh look, the techie's talking again. Isn't he cute?") than to make an attempt to approach them at a personal level ("Hey Bob, can you explain to me why a DDoS attack is a 'bad thing'?). Geeks, on the other hand, are constantly reduced to deconstructing just about every aspect of a computer's functionality down to terms that border on Seuss-ian simplicity. What the end users seem to be unwilling to grasp is the fact that, ultimately, there is really only so much dumbing down a geek can do. New technology requires a new vocabulary.
BTW. In the field where I work, "techies" are referred to as "Computer Responsible Persons" or "CRPs" for short. Anyone care to venture a guess on how THAT acronym gets pronounced?
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
Sticking with your analogy, could a carpenter who works with a framing hammer figure out how to use a tiny finish hammer or a large ball peen? They look different, and they're different sizes, and some may or may not have claws. The poor carpenter could never get his work done if he had to use a different hammer.
Of course that's silly. A real-life carpenter, when confronted with a hammer that's slightly different than the one he's used to, would shrug, pick up the new tool, and get back to work. He certainly wouldn't call IT and complain that this new hammer is too complicated.
Oh, please. You are going out of your way to insult people.
And you're being idealistic. I worked in tech support for an ISP when Windows 98 came out. We had customers calling who were literally in tears because they couldn't set up their new machines. Why? Because our setup sheets had slightly different wording than what they were seeing on their machines (Internet Connection Wizard had changed slightly). They were being asked for their area code, but our instructions didn't mention any "area code prompt", so they were panicked.
Oh, and I'm posting this anonymously becuase I've seen how nasty people here can get when someone dares to hold up a mirror to them and say, "See how stupid you're acting?"
Nice way to pre-demonize any contrary views. Now I'm automatically a nasty, narrow-minded twit because I disagree with you.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Perhaps in smaller software development shops, they don't have product managers and UI designers, but most of the examples you are citing are from large consumer-based software applications that are built by very large engineering teams. A lot of thought and decision making goes into what features get added or removed from an application before the engineers write a single line of code.
Product managers like to load up the product with tons of features so that the software fits the needs of the many. End-users may use 20% of the functionality provided to them, but the 20% that they use may not be the same from user to user. To them, the goal is simple; sell more product by offering a do-it-all, 5000-in-one, Swiss Army Knife of an application.
So I ask you, why does everyone blame the software engineers who simply build what is asked of them? I guess it's because we are easy targets. I mean, we're not the ones with the MBAs or the people skills so it's easy to fault us for difficult to use bloatware. Wrong, not every software engineer lacks in interpersonal skills, but at the end of a long chain of decision-making, the engineer's opinion is often neglected because by that time, it's too late as the feature has already been promised to customers.
If the author is looking to point fingers at degrading usability of technological systems, he should look at the MBA-types, with the people skills who actually put together the product requirements that the engineers follow.