What Should People Understand About Computers?

counterexample asks: "It seems to me that there aren't very many good books out there that explain to the layman what is really going on with computers. My mother cannot go to the bookstore and pick up a book that will make her understand the strange language that we IT people speak, or why her computer would be susceptible to a virus. So, I intend to write such a book. I have a fair idea of what should be in it (history of the Internet, how computers talk to each other, what a hard drive does, etc.), but I'm interested to see what you all have to say. What do you wish your users knew? What kind of questions are you so sick of answering because you hear them every week? What does the general public think they understand, but really don't?"

Comments

More like where do you draw the line?

[eldavojohn]

My ancestors (parents and grandparents) are a naturally inquisitive people. Any attempt to teach them things about computers may only leave them more confused and full of questions.

You are about to undertake a Herculean task in that you are now required to omit certain things which we may all know. I think your strategy should concentrate on figuring out how simply you can describe something without causing more confusion and questions.

I would suggest analyzing The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay because he does a good job at using simple illustrations and brought me up to speed on a lot of engineering ideas when I was only in fifth grade. I would try to mimic him and use his level of detail as a template into what the common person is ready to ingest.

Perhaps you should also change your strategy from "What do I include?" to "Where do I draw the line?" Start with a computer and describe the monitor, mouse, keyboard, box, printer, etc. in a high level. These are the obvious things you see. Then you can take and chapter by chapter explain each component down to as much detail as you want to. I would then have a chapter on communications and the internet that doesn't go all the way down to protocols.

Allow me to illustrate what kind of people you should aim this book at in this telephone call between me and my mother:

Me: Ok, tell me what the screen says now.
Mom: It's blue.
Me: What do you mean "it's blue"? What does it say?
Mom: It says, "9F D8 34 7B ..."
Me: Um, that's ok, ma, I don't speak hex.
Mom: "... FA 25 3C A2 ..."

One more thing, I shudder at the possibility of the history of computers being taught to my parents. This is more information that isn't really pertinent to what a layperson needs to know about computers. I would suggest delving into this as little as possible but historical facts always make reading interesting if you want to include little side notes.

As with most projects undertaken--keep it simple, stupid!

Re:More like where do you draw the line?

[Rei]

People need to understand that computers are magical boxes that run on white smoke and fairy dust. Never, ever open your computer, or even risk hooking new devices up to it; you might cause the spell to fail. Understanding how it works is of course beyond any normal mortal; computer geeks are a different breed of human utterly different than you or I.

All software installed on the computer when you get it is part of a complex enchantment; to attempt to remove any bundled software or to even look at configuration options is to destroy the enchantments and render your computer a worthless heap of metal.

The internet is an evil place where every website is either a lie or an attempt to lure children to molesters. Of course, email from your friends is always safe - after all, your friends would never send you a malicious file.

Re:More like where do you draw the line?

[Goalie_Ca]

It seems to me that there aren't very many good books out there that explain to the layman what is really going on with computers...

My ancestors (parents and grandparents) are a naturally inquisitive people. Any attempt to teach them things about computers may only leave them more confused and full of questions.

Maybe i'm a cynic but I believe that most people don't care about computers for the same reason they don't care about anything else. The average layperson isn't curious at all! Slashdot is full of nerds. We read about nanobots, particle physics, and GPL drafts in our spare time. Besides, when's the last time an average person has read a book? (bonus points for non-fiction) Inquisitive people, like you or I, are the type of people that will read a wikipedia page and then read all the connecting pages until a good hour has been spent. Curious people have enough self-motivation to do their own research and will do so from multiple sources.

Re:More like where do you draw the line?

[usrusr]

Me: Ok, tell me what the screen says now.
Mom: It's blue.
Me: What do you mean "it's blue"? What does it say?
Mom: It says, "9F D8 34 7B ..."
Me: Um, that's ok, ma, I don't speak hex.
Mom: "... FA 25 3C A2 ..."

That's a very important point, no matter how much we know about the technical details of computer operation, the biggest difference between "us" and "them" ( = the proverbial mum) remains the mental "spam filter" that allows us to focus on the relevant parts of the UI presentation.

Re:More like where do you draw the line?

[thc69]

All of the above boils down to this:

My parents must read every character on the screen before they can gather a single piece of data from it. They cannot interact with the computer until they have viewed, thought about, squinted at, photographed, printed the photo of, discarded the photo of, composted the photo of, and grown a new tree out of that photo, of every pixel.

Users can't read you the part you need because, with the possible exception of something that is obviously a cheesecake recipe, everything on the screen is nonsense to them. Maybe Cliff could attempt to quantify and describe the filters used by us geeks to read only the important stuff. Extra credit if you can teach them to correctly operate "OK" and "Cancel" buttons in other languages/broken video cards/buggy software (more extra credit if they can do it ambi-interfacedly -- mouse and/or keyboard).

That reminds me: One thing that should definitely be covered is the 3-way "Save file" dialog that comes up when exiting a program/shutting down, and similar dialogs, that offer "Yes", "No", and "Cancel". This confuses the heck out of many users, and it's not reasonable to expect them to figure it out on their own unless they're geeks. They need to know that "Cancel" is a sure-fire way to get nothing done and be back where they started, and that they need to click "No" if they want to continue exiting the program but don't want to save the file. A sidebar should explain that walking away from the dialog will result in the computer waiting forever, and probably an "End task?" dialog will come up too.

Re:More like where do you draw the line?

[SatanicPuppy]

Frankly, I am more and more coming to this point of view, as far as users are concerned. Let them think the tiny god could become angry with them if they browse the wrong folders, or tamper with the holy configurations.

You can't teach them enough to be fully competent. If you teach them a little, you just make them dangerous, able to screw up on a much more profound level.

Solution? Teach them as little as possible.

This goes against my grain. I love teaching people things. But whenever I show someone how to do something, inevitably, destruction ensues.

How many user problems arise from them trying to install software? Solution: make it so they can't install software. Give them access to system files? Not if you don't want them to throw them away later, out of boredom. Let them configure their own apps? Are you out of your MIND?

I used to work in my university computer lab. When you logged into a computer, it would build your system profile for you, from stored settings (not thin client, mind you, it pulled down everything you needed and wrote it on the local harddrive). Applications were served from central servers. Files were saved in your serverside directory.

When you logged off, it went through and ran a cleanup app that expunged every trace of your presence, checked all the system files, and replaced any that had been modified in ANY WAY. Five minutes later, a perfectly clean machine was ready for another user. The only real problem we had with it was that it was rough as hell on the harddrive, so the replacement rate was pretty high.

Every place I've worked since then, I've longed for that level of control. No viruses, no wierd errors. Worst case scenario, you replace the harddrive and run a build script.

Re:More like where do you draw the line?

[SatanicPuppy]

I work with this guy whose whole job is to maintain a legacy mainframe. He can look at an outqueue, just glance at it, and tell you immediately what jobs failed. He'll call me up if the filesize on the input files is off kilter, and can tell from the most hopelessly obscure error message what the actual problem is.

Thirty years experience will do that to you. Moreover, thirty years experience will do that to any of us. We have built in junk filters because we've seen the amazing bluescreen a zillion times. Our eyes automatically zero in on the actual error, because we've trained them to do it, error after error, for 16-19 years now.

The problem is, there is no way you can teach experience. In a way that's good because if you could, most of us'd be out of a job. But in situations like this, is damn inconvenient.

Re:More like where do you draw the line?

[UnrefinedLayman]

Me: Ok, tell me what the screen says now.
Mom: It's blue.
Me: What do you mean "it's blue"? What does it say?
Mom: It says, "9F D8 34 7B ..."
Me: Um, that's ok, ma, I don't speak hex.
Mom: "... FA 25 3C A2 ..."

Your post was great, and I think a lot of it will help the person that asked. Having said that, it's important to point out that a lot of the frustration that people feel is borne of the feeling that the person providing support knows exactly what they're doing and the person seeking support doesn't.

It's kind of like taking your car into the shop. A lot of people will be nervous in front of the mechanic and not want to describe what the problem is with the car because they don't know the terminology or where the problem could be. Instead they'll say it sounds like the catalytic converter is overheating the timing belt on the radiator exhaust manifold piston: a bunch of useless information. Nervousness breeds uncertainty breeds impatience breeds hositility, and the same is true with computers.

The problem is often that the person providing support doesn't ask the right questions. Some of the best support I've gotten has been from people that led me to the answers. The questions in your example are perfect: "What does the screen say?" and "What do you mean 'it's blue,' what does it say?" Screens don't say anything, they have things printed on them, and when the user gives you an answer, it doesn't help to ask them a ridiculing question ("what do you mean, 'it's blue?'" (hint: they mean 'it's blue')) and then repeat your original question. It gets you nowhere (as you demonstrated). When it's expected that there's a whole lot of useless information (a hex dump) and a little bit of useful information (IRQ NOT LESS OR EQUAL TO), it's the job of the person providing support to lead the user to the answer. Try the exchange:

You: "The screen should be light blue with a white box for a password below your username. Do you see that?"
Mom: "The screen's dark blue and it has a bunch of white text."
You: "OK, there should be a bunch of random text at the top, with the letters A through F and the numbers 0 through 9. Ignore that part; we're looking for the first line below all the random text that has actual words in it. Read me that line."

Like you said, people aren't dumb and they're naturally inquisitive. Leading them through the troubleshooting steps makes support a lot easier and productive. Most of the problems I see with support analysts is that they don't know how to ask the right questions, not that the user is too dumb to understand. Even the dumbest user can be helped if they're willing and if the support person has the right skills.

Re:More like where do you draw the line?

[Kadin2048]

Actually I disagree. I think most people are curious, at some level, about computers. (Actually I think most people are curious about a whole lot of things.) However they find that asking them questions usually doesn't get them anywhere, and so they learn to treat the computer as a sort of 'magic box' and ignore whatever curious impulses they might have over how it works.

Think of what most people get if they ask a question about computers. If they don't outright get told that there's 'no reason for them to know,' or 'it's too complicated for me to explain,' either they get some sort of patronizing explanation that they themselves know isn't true, or one so loaded with technical detail that they feel like an imbecile for asking. It's either the children's book or the technical manual; there's no middle ground. And it really only takes one bad experience to throw someone off a subject that they're only peripherally interested in.

I don't think this is necessarily specific to computers, though. Most people don't really know how their television, automobile transmission, or microwave works. Every once in a while they might get curious and wonder what's going on inside, but they know that if they ask a really knowledgable person a question (e.g. if they ask a mechanic about a transmission) they'll probably either get brushed off or get an incomprehensible response. So they shrug and go on in ignorance.

Personally I think the internet is very slowly beginning to change that. When you have immediate access to information on practially anything -- and especially technical topics -- it becomes a lot less painful to fulfill that momentary impulse to learn. You don't have to go to a library, you don't have to find an expert, and you can read as much or as little as you like. "More than you want to know about just about anything" is just a HowStuffWorks, Wikipedia, or Google query away.

Just as a personal anecdote, I've noticed that my father (who is in his late 60s, and was until recently of the ardent conviction that typing was for secretaries) uses the internet constantly when he's watching television. The last time I was home, we were watching a movie he saw as a young man (Ben Hur, I believe) and he recalled that when the movie had originally been released, a big deal had been made of how it was shot in "Panavision"; however he'd never been totally clear what Panavision was. So as we were sitting there he grabbed his laptop, typed "Panavision" into wikipedia, and answered a 47-year-long 'mild curiosity' in about ten minutes.

My point in all this is that you have to present information to people in a way that's easily -- perhaps instanly -- accessible. Start simply, and work up from there. Don't try to force anything on them; if and when they want to know something (if you do your job right) they'll find you and satisfy themselves. I think Wikipedia and HowStuffWorks are great because it lets someone who's just mildly curious about something to find an answer to their question in a satisfying way, so that the next time they're curious about something, they won't repress the urge to find out. Plus if they're more than just mildly curious, they both provide ways to learn more about a topic, or about related topics.

Re:More like where do you draw the line?

[iangoldby]

If you teach them a little, you just make them dangerous, able to screw up... Solution? Teach them as little as possible... make it so they can't install software...

Every place I've worked since then, I've longed for that level of control.

Unfortunately, you give the game away with your last statement. Systems administrators love to have absolute power and it does avoid all those tedious problems of sorting out machines their users have broken. The problem is that unless they are really well resourced they won't be able to do everything the users need doing in the timescales that are necessary.

But worse still, in your effort to protect the unsophisticated users from themselves, you inevitably hamstring the more sophisticated users.

It's all very well saying that all requests for new software have to go through IT support. But then one of your sophisticated users wants some highly specialised piece of software that could just be downloaded and installed in 15 minutes. No one in IT has even heard of it before. It has to be approved and scripted, and while there is one user waiting for this there are 200 clamouring for the upgrade to MS Project. The result is that you're lucky to get it any time in the next 10 weeks. Something you could have installed yourself in 15 minutes if only IT would drop their one-size-fits-all policy and give trust where trust is due.

Sorry, rant over :-)

First thing's first

[voice_of_all_reason]

Design a mechanical arm that comes out from between the pages and stabs the reader in the face every time they confuse "memory" with "disk space." You'll be doing us all a great service.

Know how to drive but not where they are.

[jellomizer]

The biggest problem I tend to face is that people don't know where the hardware ends, and where the OS Begins and where the OS Ends and the Applications begins. When they are doing something over the network or locally. They are just completely lost on the system. It it like they know how to drive but they don't know where they are now.

They will always blame the wrong part for their problems.

My Computer is Broken! When When MS Word fails to open.
Windows Sucks! When the system wont Boot because the computer hardware failed.
The Internet Is Down! When Windows somehow lost all its drives and fails boot.
My Computer is slow, I need a faster one! When there are 1000s of spyware apps running

What people need to know is what part of the computer does what type of job and how to at least say where the problem is.

They should know when the Harddrive is clicking away or when sending information over the network.

A Plea for Task-Based Organisation

[Dunx]

A request for the format of your book - organise the explanations by things people actually use their computers for.

- writing a letter: how a program starts, how different document formats work, how saving a file puts it onto the hard disc, how printing works

- looking something up on Google: how the internet works (good luck with that one!), how web sites work, how computers talk to each other over the internet, how firewalls work ... and so on. This kind of task-based organisation should make it easier for the lay person to understand what is going on because they can relate it to something real they actually do.

Re:Sadly...

[Dr. Evil]

I think "general public" includes women themselves....

You must be new here.

Starting from a flawed premise

[Timesprout]

Maybe most people are capable of understanding computers but most geeks are such shitty communicators they just cant explain things clearly enough, often because they just dont understand the subject well enough themselves half the time.

My Granny

[turgid]

When I was 8, I got a computer for Christmas. My granny said to me, "Ask it who the Prime Minister is!"

Oblig. Simpsons

[truthsearch]

Homer: Now then... computer.. kill Flanders!
Ned: Did I hear my name? My ears are burning!
Homer: [whispering to mouse] That's a good start, now finish the job!
Ned: Oh, you're busy. Catch you later, compu-tator!
Homer: Oh, five thousand dollars for a computer and it can't even handle a simple assignment!

Screw the Book; Produce a DVD Video

[ewhac]

The audience you're trying to reach couldn't be bothered to RTFM that came free with their machine; what makes you think they're going to buy another book? There have been no shortage of books on the subject, and people are still underinformed.

So I say forget doing a book at all (at least initially), and instead consider screenwriting a DVD video. People will be far more willing to give it a quick spin than check out a book. Also, it's much cheaper to duplicate, and you can distribute it over the Internet. (Technically, the same is also true of "books" in PDF format, but books are traditionally not thought of in that manner.)

If the DVD is a success, than you can go into more depth in a follow-on book (or just leave a PDF file on the DVD).

Schwab

Cars and Computers

[vettemph]

>>>shudder at the possibility of the history of computers being taught to my parents.

I agree.
The book should take on the angle of driving a car.
    ANALOGIES
Controls: keyboard and mouse
Engine: OS
Bumpers: AV software
Crooked mechanic: Windows update
Lemons: Windows (please pass a lemon law for this crap OS)
Mclaren F1: GNU/Linux (or is linux an original VW which became a porsche?)
Car Jackers: script kiddies/spyware/adware

  Of course You need road signs, maps, short cuts, scenic routes and many other things. "Drivers training" should be a requirement.

(copywrite Ken Wood 2006) :)

Re:Cars and Computers

[StalinsNotDead]

You're absolutely correct. Analogies using cars work about as well as your average Pontiac Fierro.

Nothing

[melted]

The less they know, the more I can charge for my services. :0)

Another analogy

[yashinka]

I would guess 99% of all people don't know the difference between memory and a harddrive. I once gave a speech about the basics of computer hardware and I found this analogy useful (although somewhat limited).

Imagine you are going to solve a problem and you have no long term memory. You have only a notebook, a calculator and a library.

- The CPU is like your mind and calculator: Fast enough for simple problems but you can't do everything in your head.
- The Cache is your short term memory. You don't need to reread things in the front of your notebook over and over.
- The Memory is like your notebook. You can look through it fairly quickly but it can only hold so much.
- The harddrive is the library. It holds vast amounts of information but takes a long time to find what you need. Once you find it you can photocopy things and add them to your notebook. If your notebook is full you will throw away old papers.

You can expand on this analogy to say that some books hold information while others hold instructions and references to other books.