The challenge for the UI and software designers is to create interfaces that are effective, easily learnable or intuitive,
and, if possible, similar to some interface the user is already familiar with, regardless of their skills.
The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
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Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#12Even with corporate training the users I worked with couldn't find out how to do things even with a FAQ, HOWTO, F1 Help, and Help Desk helping them out. Web and Desktop apps. Plus they requested features that already were in the programs to be added in the next release. Which means they didn't know how to access them.
Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#13>Instead of using live websites, the participants attempted the tasks on simulated software on the test facilitator’s computer. I wonder if this really lowered all the scores, because the test UI may have been very non-standard/outdated/etc. "Simulated software" could be literally anything and could have caused a bunch of confusion among people who are used to certain icons and usage patterns.
I wonder if this really lowered all the scores, because the test UI may have been very non-standard/outdated/etc.
...or, as may as likely be the case, very "modern". I'm confident to say that I'm far in the "advanced user" category, also having been a developer for a few decades, and yet I still get perplexed often by UIs with lots of hidden functionality and confusing hieroglyphics instead of descriptive text.
Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#14It's obvious to me that this is because of the bubble that I ostensibly live in, but this is still simply shocking data. Only 5% of people can perform more complex tasks than finding an email with a particular sender, subject and date? I suppose I severely take for granted and upbringing that surrounded and supported me in learning to adapt to new tech. It does make me wonder about the sustainability of technological…
Reminds me of "Profession", a great short story by Isaac Asimov:
Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#15eh. that’s about what i think. and not just about computer skills. driving skills basic reading comprehension the ability to think more than one step ahead i know it’s not going to be a popular opinion, but yes most people are stupid.
> but yes most people are stupid
Which is why democracy is so terrifying sometimes
Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#16eh. that’s about what i think. and not just about computer skills. driving skills basic reading comprehension the ability to think more than one step ahead i know it’s not going to be a popular opinion, but yes most people are stupid.
Half of all people are below average...
Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#17It's obvious to me that this is because of the bubble that I ostensibly live in, but this is still simply shocking data. Only 5% of people can perform more complex tasks than finding an email with a particular sender, subject and date? I suppose I severely take for granted and upbringing that surrounded and supported me in learning to adapt to new tech. It does make me wonder about the sustainability of technological…
I don't think this is a new feature of humanity. Consider the people you know who don't care to learn about, or pay attention to: Food (cooking, sourcing ingredients), cars, health care (e.g. what drugs do what and how; what makes your body+mind feel good or bad in the long term), electrical wiring, plumbing, "nature", etc. Computer technology just seems like another aspect of the world which many people are happy to ignore. Also... consider the number of professional computer programmers you know who don't read the readme+API dox but jump straight to stack overflow
Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#18It's obvious to me that this is because of the bubble that I ostensibly live in, but this is still simply shocking data. Only 5% of people can perform more complex tasks than finding an email with a particular sender, subject and date? I suppose I severely take for granted and upbringing that surrounded and supported me in learning to adapt to new tech. It does make me wonder about the sustainability of technological…
I sometimes go to "kaiten sushi" (sushi comes around on a conveyor belt and you can pick what you like) with my mother in law. There is an order system where you can use a touch panel to order something specific if you want it. Granted my mother in law is 86 and hasn't really used computers before, but it always amazes me that she can't figure out "buttons" on the screen. For her, they are just text with coloured backgrounds She tries reading the text, but it just doesn't make sense to her because it is essentially splatted randomly around the screen. Eventually she realised that text with a red background is a button and so now she thinks that all buttons are red! She has not been able to jump to the idea that these rectangular areas of the screen with the same background colour are buttons. I've tried explaining in the past, but she's completely uninterested and so never listens to me. In the end, watching her struggle is so interesting that I've stopped trying to help her. We take a lot of things for granted when we think about UX.
Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#19This reminds me of an oft referenced quote:
Any sufficiently advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic.[0]
0 - https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/arthur_c_clarke_101182
Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#20eh. that’s about what i think. and not just about computer skills. driving skills basic reading comprehension the ability to think more than one step ahead i know it’s not going to be a popular opinion, but yes most people are stupid.
Half of all people are below average...
no.. half of people are below the median.. I know it's a bit pedantic but in a thread making fun of stupid people lol