I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer.
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@jalefkowit Really?
Wanna go back to fucking around with IRQs and config.sys?
Installing Windows 3.1 from floppy disks?
Removing and re-adding TCP/IP from your dialup adapter in Windows 95 every week?
Screwing around with BBSs and BTX?
Getting printer drivers delivered by snail mail?
Bluescreens on a daily basis?
Reading the 300 page manual for Word Perfect?
All without Google?I think measured by the possibilities a modern system delivers it has become incredibly easy to use.
@thechris @jalefkowit Spot on, I couldn't agree more. The fact he blocked you over such an obvious statement tells me he doesn't have skin thick enough to be in IT very long.
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@jalefkowit @KentNavalesi This is a question of great and genuine interest to me.
My Apple ][+ was definitely a hard brick wall to somebody who’d never used one. Also, any specific piece of software behaved in extremely limited, extremely consistent ways, so that once somebody had learned to use it, they could continue using it.
My first-gen iPhone was a miraculous device. I could hand it to somebody who’d never used a touch screen or a “smart“ phone of any kind, and they would — without exception! I tried this experiment multiple times! — be able to figure out how to use it just by experimentation and intuition. I really don’t think that’s true of iPhones now. But a current iPhone offers far more capabilities.
Were computers easier or harder in the past? Or just •differently• hard? How? Whose needs have we prioritized? Whose comfort?
@inthehands @jalefkowit @KentNavalesi
I feel like Word Processors (much less the OSes on which they would run) were definitely one of those things you had to outright LEARN. I remember the idiosyncrasies of WordPerfect's utter reliance on the Function Keys F1-F12, and every CTRL, ALT, SHIFT combo required to get to all the features functions (and don't get me started on [ESC] escape codes to format text for printing. It was harder, 100% to learn a Word Processor back in the day.
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I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer. And every single time, I walk away in incandescent rage at how hard we have made this stuff for people who have not spent their entire waking lives marinating in it
@jalefkowit I have been marinating in computer stuff since I was a teenager in 1965. It was a lot harder when you had to code your queries for punch cards and then wait until they ran it overnight, but early pc and Mac stuff wasn’t hard, and you had control and a manual for this and that you could study, because nobody was stupid enough to confuse expertise with intuition.
The 90s were an adventure—google actually worked, and even Amazon used to be cool. Then things started to get harder by design and more cluttered with all those electronic hands reaching for your wallet.
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I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer. And every single time, I walk away in incandescent rage at how hard we have made this stuff for people who have not spent their entire waking lives marinating in it
@jalefkowit As others have pointed out, we're just in a different plane of hell. Computers used to be fighting with QEMU and fighting with drivers to load the perfect balance into high memory in order to get your network to operate so you could compile. Adding to the pain of figuring out which ISA card interrupt could still be used. Then praying your network card wouldn't just drop packets. I'll take what we have now over that past reality.
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I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer. And every single time, I walk away in incandescent rage at how hard we have made this stuff for people who have not spent their entire waking lives marinating in it
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@jtonline They were bad in the old days, but it was more excusable then (IMO) because the whole field was so new. Everybody had to figure out from scratch what worked and what didn't. Plus computers were much slower and had less resources; there weren't CPU cycles available for things like nice interfaces.
Today we know what works and we have the resources to do it. We just don't, because someone can make more money by making things hard
@jalefkowit @jtonline I got a Masters in information science 25 years ago. The class that sticks with me most to this day is the one where we did real-life user testing.
The software industry needs to do a LOT more real-life user testing.
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I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer. And every single time, I walk away in incandescent rage at how hard we have made this stuff for people who have not spent their entire waking lives marinating in it
@jalefkowit @inthehands Dealing with/have dealt with aging parents. Completely agree.
Making it worse is no graceful way to limit the abilities of the device. Speaking particularly of Apple's Assistive Access mode, it’s a disaster. Not only are you forced into a completely different UI that works completely differently, there isn’t a way to “step” into it. It’s all or nothing - which feels insulting to the user who just needs a little less on the screen. (1/2)
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I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer. And every single time, I walk away in incandescent rage at how hard we have made this stuff for people who have not spent their entire waking lives marinating in it
@jalefkowit
I had the same problem trying to find new computer games for an elderly relative. She had an old CD ROM with cars [edit: CARD] games that she liked but her latest laptop didn't have one and the games were coded for Windows 95 anyway.Everything I could find was SaaS crap that required online subscription, had in-game micro transactions, etc. Utter shite.
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@jalefkowit @KentNavalesi This is a question of great and genuine interest to me.
My Apple ][+ was definitely a hard brick wall to somebody who’d never used one. Also, any specific piece of software behaved in extremely limited, extremely consistent ways, so that once somebody had learned to use it, they could continue using it.
My first-gen iPhone was a miraculous device. I could hand it to somebody who’d never used a touch screen or a “smart“ phone of any kind, and they would — without exception! I tried this experiment multiple times! — be able to figure out how to use it just by experimentation and intuition. I really don’t think that’s true of iPhones now. But a current iPhone offers far more capabilities.
Were computers easier or harder in the past? Or just •differently• hard? How? Whose needs have we prioritized? Whose comfort?
@inthehands @jalefkowit @KentNavalesi The latest iOS update really pissed me off. And you're so right about the older apple systems, they were intuitive.
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I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer. And every single time, I walk away in incandescent rage at how hard we have made this stuff for people who have not spent their entire waking lives marinating in it
@jalefkowit I teach future app developers and sysadmins and even for them make it a point to pre-configure the operating system on their laptops in the most distraction-free and unambiguous manner possible, so their early learning experience throws them fewer curve balls.
Something as simple as searching the main application launcher for a program or setting shouldn't also randomly pester users with celebrity news.
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@jalefkowit it's hard enough for people with 40 years of marinating.
@julianlawson @jalefkowit
I used to be marinated it in, then they charged what it was,- an old techie, me. I'm old and a techie -
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I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer. And every single time, I walk away in incandescent rage at how hard we have made this stuff for people who have not spent their entire waking lives marinating in it
@jalefkowit It isn't just us elders (80+ and 76) who need support. Spouse bought a charging base & companion power brick. The quick start guide had not one instruction, only safety precautions. The QR code provided a pictorial of the devices & ports. In my aggravated state I called tech support who emailed links to the real thing! All this so the on-screen device status could be read by their APP! At least the links worked.
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I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer. And every single time, I walk away in incandescent rage at how hard we have made this stuff for people who have not spent their entire waking lives marinating in it
It does make me wonder if the marketing department prefers being inaccessible to the old. Brand something something.
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I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer. And every single time, I walk away in incandescent rage at how hard we have made this stuff for people who have not spent their entire waking lives marinating in it
@jalefkowit
Because I set my mil up with a PC and then a laptop 20 years ago, I'm the family computer wiz. Unfortunately, after that I've had corporate it people handling all computer stuff so I'm now incredibly out of date. She still calls for help, which I could do, if I had the time to work it out. Just make a laptop that's easy to set up and use. -
I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer. And every single time, I walk away in incandescent rage at how hard we have made this stuff for people who have not spent their entire waking lives marinating in it
@jalefkowit I have spent my entire life marinating in it and I am still regularly infuriated by random unnecessary changes to the UI on devices I use that make something that used to be easy much harder, or hide some critical bit of information or configuration. I gave my mother an Android tablet she can do almost everything on so at least I don't have to provide long-distance tech support for her old and glacially slow Windows laptop.
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I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer. And every single time, I walk away in incandescent rage at how hard we have made this stuff for people who have not spent their entire waking lives marinating in it
@jalefkowit
thank you -
I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer. And every single time, I walk away in incandescent rage at how hard we have made this stuff for people who have not spent their entire waking lives marinating in it
@jalefkowit @Flux My partner is very much not a computer person, but is exceptionally intelligent; physician and teacher, among other things. Every few months she asks me for help with something that ought to be super basic—things like “how do i copy a file from here to here”—and I have no idea. I have to figure it out all over again because it’s changed, inscrutably, since the last time we had to figure it out. She largely blames her self and I get angry ob her behalf.
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@jalefkowit @Flux My partner is very much not a computer person, but is exceptionally intelligent; physician and teacher, among other things. Every few months she asks me for help with something that ought to be super basic—things like “how do i copy a file from here to here”—and I have no idea. I have to figure it out all over again because it’s changed, inscrutably, since the last time we had to figure it out. She largely blames her self and I get angry ob her behalf.
@jalefkowit @Flux Computers were harder to use in the past in the sense of having a steeper learning curve. But once you knew how to use `cp` it never friggin’ changed. It was a steeper learning curve but there was mastery at the end. A relative plateau of actual skill. Not an endless gradual treadmill of pointless changes and re-learning the basics.
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This is a similar argument I've seen explained in a video about video game UI/mechanics.
It's all made by people in-the-know, who can't really put themselves in the shoes of someone who has never heard of the thing, and thinks a quick "you just click here and voilá!" is enough.
I had to take "PC" (really, DOS and Windows 3.1) classes when I got my first computer. I was terrified of doing something wrong and it'd make the computer explode.
I try to always keep that in mind.
@fruitcakesareyum @jalefkowit i feel like i cant effectively help people with computer issues anymore for a similar reason, ive been marinating in it for so long that i cant put myself in the shoes of a beginner anymore and dont know how to explain anything to someone with sufficiently different experience, even other IT workers who are in different parts of tech
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@imcdowall @jalefkowit This is absolutely not why things suck.
The incentives of capitalism are towards Dark Patterns and systems that lie to you.
@ajroach42 @imcdowall @jalefkowit i can deal with normal well-meaning incompetance, but needing to be on the constant defence against Dark Patterns is exhausting and toxic
