I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer.
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As well as now being elderly, Mum is dyslexic and she's got a lifetime of suffering from male sexism, where men make her feel stupid for not being as good at a technical thing as she is.
There's sometimes where my partner and I (both female) can get Mum to do stuff or listen where no man can, cos she's not tensed-up for the expected sexism and sneering (or obvious THINKING sneering thoughts badly suppressed).
Glad your neighbour has you. It's not easy.
@NatalyaD @jalefkowit @jtonline I'm at a point where I'm wondering whether it might be beneficial to put Mint on my 2011 MacBook, and give it to MiL.
She already uses Firefox, so all I'd need is to make sure that's prominent and available and signed in to her account. We'll be able to remote into it if anything does awry, and I can run software updates in the background.
It has no battery, but she never moves her current laptop anyway. And it'll be a damn sight more stable than the budget Windows laptop she currently has.
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@jalefkowit I'm at the stage now where I'm starting to think that giving someone a 20 minute primer on Linux then letting them get on eith it has to be easier than constantly fighting with their firewall, antiviral, and shifty OS every week.
Personally, ive found several problems with Win11 recently that require opening Powershell as admin just to do something that used to take a couple of clicks with a mouse - something that the Windows evangelists always said was stopping people moving to Linux.
I'm now seriously considering a 2nd SSD for dual booting into something, possibly Mint.@mancavgeek @jalefkowit https://aus.social/@stib/116117883536605111 ... Anecdotal data on your assumption being correct
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Someone posted a reply saying that computers were harder in the past so it's fine they're hard now, which earned them an instant block. Thanks for identifying yourself as the kind of person I want nothing to do with
@jalefkowit computers were harder in the past?? Maybe in the 1980s when you had to use DOS (or whatever the name was) to run games.. From the first windows it was piece of cake and just working.. Much much better than the dreaded Win11..
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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 At the risk of Beetlejuicing xkcd, people who have been “doing computers” for a long time vastly overestimate how familiar people are with computers, even when they attempt to “dumb it down” for the masses. AFFORDANCES ARE STILL IMPORTANT.
People do NOT know what that icon means. They do NOT know that thing is interactable. They do NOT know they can edge-swipe. They do NOT know they can long-press.
Worse, YOUNG people who are “doing computers” underestimate the degradation of eyesight, swiftness, and motor control that is built into the aging process. Any operation that requires fine motor control, eagle eyes, and rock-steady hands with nimble fingers is hostile.
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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
Nah, just install Linux.(Someone had to say it)
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@jalefkowit Not computers per se, but as an example of usability improvements that got ruthlessly killed off by the dominant players - BlackBerry Hub: I've had to get someone off a BlackBerry 10 device when they were shutting down services for it and the most painful part was reintroducing them to the concept of "your messages live in several different apps". And then "most of them also try to silo you in by making it harder or impossible to forward things elsewhere".
@HaTetsu i still miss BB10, the messages living in one place and all being searchable was fantastic
my mailbox is still named hub over a decade later to save me having to tweak my muscle memory
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@jalefkowit At the risk of Beetlejuicing xkcd, people who have been “doing computers” for a long time vastly overestimate how familiar people are with computers, even when they attempt to “dumb it down” for the masses. AFFORDANCES ARE STILL IMPORTANT.
People do NOT know what that icon means. They do NOT know that thing is interactable. They do NOT know they can edge-swipe. They do NOT know they can long-press.
Worse, YOUNG people who are “doing computers” underestimate the degradation of eyesight, swiftness, and motor control that is built into the aging process. Any operation that requires fine motor control, eagle eyes, and rock-steady hands with nimble fingers is hostile.
@drahardja @jalefkowit I came across someone who didn't know what "web browser" meant, but she did know the phone's icon she needed to press to go on the internet. Another person I came across wanted to know how I was moving the pointer around the screen. Computers are very complex these days, starting from scratch is a long learner curve.
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@drahardja @jalefkowit I came across someone who didn't know what "web browser" meant, but she did know the phone's icon she needed to press to go on the internet. Another person I came across wanted to know how I was moving the pointer around the screen. Computers are very complex these days, starting from scratch is a long learner curve.
@jtb @jalefkowit Indeed. I met someone who never used anything but their phone, and they were completely lost on a trackpad-based laptop with no touchscreen. They kept poking the screen, then poking the trackpad assuming absolute positioning. They had no idea what the pointer was, or how to “drag” anything.
It dawned on me that we no longer have any onboarding training or truly basic affordances for people who had never used a trackpad or mouse with a pointer before, which with the explosion of touchscreen mobile devices these days, must be a HUGE number of people.
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@jtb @jalefkowit Indeed. I met someone who never used anything but their phone, and they were completely lost on a trackpad-based laptop with no touchscreen. They kept poking the screen, then poking the trackpad assuming absolute positioning. They had no idea what the pointer was, or how to “drag” anything.
It dawned on me that we no longer have any onboarding training or truly basic affordances for people who had never used a trackpad or mouse with a pointer before, which with the explosion of touchscreen mobile devices these days, must be a HUGE number of people.
@drahardja @jalefkowit Someone who had never had a computer, but had used one, asked me if when he bought one it would come with a manual. I naively thought he meant how to set it up, which is all manuals tell you these days, but he wanted a manual on how to use it. We take it for granted these day that you ask the internet how to do things. But there was a time when there were many books in the library on how to use computers.
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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 so true. I never was too aware of this until I started coaching people with basic online skills. Computers (esp windows!) and the internet have become so very hostile to new users. In the past things were difficult in other ways, but then we did not have the cookie walls, advertisements, confusing popups and notifications, the different OS ecosystems, AI, etc etc.
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@mancavgeek @jalefkowit https://aus.social/@stib/116117883536605111 ... Anecdotal data on your assumption being correct
@mainec Crikey!
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@NatalyaD @jalefkowit @DJDarren UIs randomly changing is a huge thing!
@jtonline @NatalyaD @jalefkowit @DJDarren it's driven by marketing Apple's pointless Liquid Ass being a case in point.
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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 Yes, much this!
"Yes, you can tap there, it'll pop something up". "No, not there, even though it looks pretty much the same".
"Yes, that is an input field", and only AFTER tapping it, it indeed looks like an input field.
This is so stoopid,
agree on your sentiment. -
@jalefkowit At the risk of Beetlejuicing xkcd, people who have been “doing computers” for a long time vastly overestimate how familiar people are with computers, even when they attempt to “dumb it down” for the masses. AFFORDANCES ARE STILL IMPORTANT.
People do NOT know what that icon means. They do NOT know that thing is interactable. They do NOT know they can edge-swipe. They do NOT know they can long-press.
Worse, YOUNG people who are “doing computers” underestimate the degradation of eyesight, swiftness, and motor control that is built into the aging process. Any operation that requires fine motor control, eagle eyes, and rock-steady hands with nimble fingers is hostile.
@drahardja
Young people dont even understand the concept of a file system, what files are and how they can be organized in folders and sub-folders, or copied to physical mediaAnd i DONT blame them for that
They have grown up with "Smartphones" where everything is like scrolling through a gallery, and everything magically syncs up across devices because of some magic google does
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@CdnCurmudgeon @jalefkowit I also suffer from the affliction "marinated in tech", is that what we call this old stew flavour?
@jeffhorton @jalefkowit
Depends on when you started. I began with changing tubs in TV sets and radios in the '50s. That's tech paleontology. So fossilized instead of marinated might be more appropriate for my cohort. After that, instant dinner tech or maybe transistor tech...then LED tech, laser tech... -
@jalefkowit so true. I never was too aware of this until I started coaching people with basic online skills. Computers (esp windows!) and the internet have become so very hostile to new users. In the past things were difficult in other ways, but then we did not have the cookie walls, advertisements, confusing popups and notifications, the different OS ecosystems, AI, etc etc.
@lhengstmengel @jalefkowit "I know why this user interface element acts in this broken manner but trying to put it into words, live with the person next to me, is a task my brain is not up to"
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@NatalyaD @jalefkowit @jtonline I'm at a point where I'm wondering whether it might be beneficial to put Mint on my 2011 MacBook, and give it to MiL.
She already uses Firefox, so all I'd need is to make sure that's prominent and available and signed in to her account. We'll be able to remote into it if anything does awry, and I can run software updates in the background.
It has no battery, but she never moves her current laptop anyway. And it'll be a damn sight more stable than the budget Windows laptop she currently has.
I have my mum on iOS on her 2016 Macbook which was new when she bought it and we've kept going since. I run updates and time machine each visit. She manages Chrome or FireFox as browsers and Libre Office for documents (and she is uneducatedly dyslexically horrific with a spreadsheet regardless of application).
In a way as long as it is stable, consistent, you have the useful apps in 'the place for apps' I think it can work well. Windows is however hell.
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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
My very first computer was a (then somewhat outdated) Macintosh Performa. OS 7.6.11 iirc.
I loved it. It came with little tutorials like „mousing around“ for people who had never worked with a mouse, and it always seemed to provide several ways to achieve the thing you wanted. It all felt very intuitive to me.
Everyone around me was cursing their windows machines and I always said, get a Mac. The ones who did were happy, too.
So in my experience, these computers weren’t difficult to use.
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