Research Proving People Don't RTFM, Resent 'Over-Featured' Products, Wins Ig Nobel Prize (improbable.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Thursday the humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research held their 28th annual ceremony recognizing the real (but unusual) scientific research papers "that make people laugh, then think." And winning this year's coveted Literature prize was a paper titled "Life Is Too Short to RTFM: How Users Relate to Documentation and Excess Features in Consumer Products," which concluded that most people really, truly don't read the manual, "and most do not use all the features of the products that they own and use regularly..."

"Over-featuring and being forced to consult manuals also appears to cause negative emotional experiences."

Another team measured "the frequency, motivation, and effects of shouting and cursing while driving an automobile," which won them the Ig Nobel Peace Prize. Other topics of research included self-colonoscopies, removing kidney stones with roller coasters, and (theoretical) cannibalism. "Acceptance speeches are limited to 60 seconds," reports Ars Technica, "strictly enforced by an eight-year-old girl nicknamed 'Miss Sweetie-Poo,' who will interrupt those who exceed the time limit by repeating, 'Please stop. I'm bored.' Until they stop."
You can watch the whole wacky ceremony on YouTube. The awards are presented by actual Nobel Prize laureates -- and at least one past winner of an Ig Nobel Prize later went on to win an actual Nobel Prize.

Comments

80/20 rule

[rsilvergun]

80% of your users only use 20% of your features. But it's a different 20% for everyone. Eventually you get to the point where everyone's got that one little feature they can't live without. That's where you get lock in from. It's how Microsoft keeps their office monopoly in the face of competition from Open Office and the like.

There are manuals, then there are manuals

[bobstreo]

There's nothing I hate more than trying to figure out what some dyslexic English as a Third Language moron created using Google Translate actually meant.

Then there are the manuals that contain proper English that repeat everything, except the answer you actually need.

I had bookshelves full of Microsoft, Oracle and Solaris manuals that (with the advent of reasonably good search engines) I quickly tossed into the recycling bin,

To the article's point

[DaMattster]

Yes, I am starting to become resentful of all of the technology forced upon me and I don't RTFM. I personally hate the whole so-called Internet of Things. I neither want nor need a smart TV and smart refrigerator. The whole IoT thing is like a solution searching for a problem.

Re:Research like this is why software is crap

[AmiMoJo]

I bought my mum a Chromebook because Windows and Firefox were confusing for her. She's not a novice, she actually had training in Windows and Office, but there is still a lot of crap that she can't handle.

So there is utility in being simple. What we need is apps that have a simple mode and a power user mode. Considering how flexible the Firefox UI is supposed to be it seems like they missed an opportunity there.