Computers shouldn't make people feel like idiots
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Computers shouldn't make people feel like idiots
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Re: Computers shouldn't make people feel like idiots
#2As with most things, which side you're on isn't as important as the fact that you're having the discussion. I'm excited to see what Apple's competitors come back with to combat the seeming ease of use and simple interface that the iPad is bringing to market. I'm not a big fan of Apple products, but I'm a huge fan of driving innovation...so I guess I am a big fan of Apple as a company :-)
Re: Computers shouldn't make people feel like idiots
#3Stop Being An Idiot - http://orderedlist.com/our-writing/blog/articles/stop-being-...
"Our job, when designing features and interfaces, is to make them powerful, usable, and understandable. Not to cater to those people too lazy to think. Our job is to make things intuitive. But intuition still requires an individual to want to understand something. It requires an attempt to understand. It requires thought, even subconsciously. We have little power over people’s desire to succeed. We can only provide the tools to do so. So teach people, don’t criticize them."
Re: Computers shouldn't make people feel like idiots
#4Stop Being An Idiot - http://orderedlist.com/our-writing/blog/articles/stop-being-... "Our job, when designing features and interfaces, is to make them powerful, usable, and understandable. Not to cater to those people too lazy to think. Our job is to make things intuitive. But intuition still requires an individual to want to understand something. It requires an attempt to understand. It requires thought, even subco…
It's hard for gentle pushing from software design to overcome years of learned helplessness.
Re: Computers shouldn't make people feel like idiots
#5Stop Being An Idiot - http://orderedlist.com/our-writing/blog/articles/stop-being-... "Our job, when designing features and interfaces, is to make them powerful, usable, and understandable. Not to cater to those people too lazy to think. Our job is to make things intuitive. But intuition still requires an individual to want to understand something. It requires an attempt to understand. It requires thought, even subco…
It's hard for gentle pushing from software design to overcome years of learned helplessness.
Around 92 I was forced into a required class for basic computers. I didn't pay much attention, but got A's as it was covering topics I already knew well. What I did learn from that class was from the students as I noticed many were just downright afrid of the machines and would only do what the teacher said.
There was no sense of play and the fear of "Blowing something up" was always there and I wondered how anybody could learn with that kind of fear.
I can understand getting frustrated but fear of the machine was baffling but I got a good glimpse on how "regular" people reacted to technology.
Re: Computers shouldn't make people feel like idiots
#6Somehow I don't think that learning how to operate a unique proprietary user interface(iPad) will help people to operate a real desktop computer. While it may temporary help to boost users self confidence in using a computer it will only serve as a fallback after the inevetable frustrations with a full UI.
What is realy apsent from the mind of older generations is the idea that computers are just tools, albeit imensly powerfull ones, and as with all tools we need time and especially motivation to learn how to use them.
Personally, I don't give a damm how my car works but I had to learn how to use it to get form one place to another and it would certainly be much harder to do it if every other car had a radically diferent set of controlls.
Re: Computers shouldn't make people feel like idiots
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's hard for gentle pushing from software design to overcome years of learned helplessness.
Around 92 I was forced into a required class for basic computers. I didn't pay much attention, but got A's as it was covering topics I already knew well. What I did learn from that class was from the students as I noticed many were just downright afrid of the machines and would only do what the teacher said. There was no sense of play and the fear of "Blowing something up" was always there and I wondered how anybody…
When I was about 9 or so I became extremely interesting in computers. I wasn't afraid of them....and I broke them over and over usually to the dismay of my family. Now I know how to do advanced things properly...but computers are very fragile and easy to break. This has to change for normal users, the Applet Tablet and Chrome OS are steps in that direction.
People want stable machines that never break no matter what they do. Once we actually get to that point, maybe people will stop being so afraid but we aren't there, their fear comes from experience of things breaking on them.
Re: Computers shouldn't make people feel like idiots
#8Stop Being An Idiot - http://orderedlist.com/our-writing/blog/articles/stop-being-... "Our job, when designing features and interfaces, is to make them powerful, usable, and understandable. Not to cater to those people too lazy to think. Our job is to make things intuitive. But intuition still requires an individual to want to understand something. It requires an attempt to understand. It requires thought, even subco…
It's hard for gentle pushing from software design to overcome years of learned helplessness.
Is it learned helplessness or learned laziness? My mother can speak 5 different languages but "needed" me to show her how find her "My Documents" after she downloaded email attachments for years. It was amazing how after I stopped helping her with everything immediately ("Ma, I've got to finish this homework" is a remarkably effective retort) that she put in the effort to understand how to use this tool for her purposes.
I think more than anything there just hasn't been a good enough effort to help people get up the first part of the learning curve as they often have no idea where to start and people haven't been taught how to protect themselves, etc.
I agree with the earlier post that software designers have to want to make things simple, but people have to want to learn how to use it.
Re: Computers shouldn't make people feel like idiots
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's hard for gentle pushing from software design to overcome years of learned helplessness.
Around 92 I was forced into a required class for basic computers. I didn't pay much attention, but got A's as it was covering topics I already knew well. What I did learn from that class was from the students as I noticed many were just downright afrid of the machines and would only do what the teacher said. There was no sense of play and the fear of "Blowing something up" was always there and I wondered how anybody…
There will always be people like that. My grandmother used to live with us as I was growing up, and she was always afraid of technology. She was afraid to touch the electronic thermostat... even though it only had two buttons and just displayed the set temp and the current temp. She was deathly afraid that she would 'break' it.
{edit} On the other hand, you also have people that constantly break things as a result of their own actions, and refuse to change. My friend's sister would be constantly corrupting her external hard drive because she would just yank the plug to remove her laptop from her desk. My friend would fix things and repeatedly tell her not to do that, but it would always happen again.
People are all over the spectrum. There are people that are just downright afraid of new things, and there are people that just take everything for granted (not caring what the consequences of their actions are).
Re: Computers shouldn't make people feel like idiots
#10Somehow I don't think that learning how to operate a unique proprietary user interface(iPad) will help people to operate a real desktop computer. While it may temporary help to boost users self confidence in using a computer it will only serve as a fallback after the inevetable frustrations with a full UI. What is realy apsent from the mind of older generations is the idea that computers are just tools, albeit imensl…
Apple is training people how to use the next generation of computers with their language. Because no one else has had the guts to do what Apple is doing, they are ceding the opportunity to define that language.