111–120 of 164 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But the mortgage giver already sends those to the tax authority. How else do you think they have all your mortgage data pre-filled when you file your taxes ?
I wish my tax authority did that... on any of my tax returns.
The OECD published the results of a massive survey of member countries some years ago, titled "Skills Matter" ( https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/skills-matter_978926... ). The researchers defined 4 levels of technology proficiency, based on the types of tasks users can complete successfully. There was a very good summary published here ( https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/ ) and excerpted b…
Something I observe with people new to computing at an old age: They try to reduce any task to "below level 1", aiming at writing this down as a sequence of atomic steps of a recipe. There is no confidence in being able to remember how a task is to be achieved at any future point. There is also no confidence and therefor no interest in acquiring the basic grammar of user interfaces. (E.g., double-clicking is not link…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed. There are many things computers are amazing at doing (that's why I find them fascinating and enjoy working on them from time to time)—but human empathy isn't one of them.
Computers didn't choose to close down a branch or limit its hours, humans did.
My favorite example of this being restaurants that, when you ask for a menu, give you a QR code (with no explanation of course).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doing that by email is a real dick move. They should send a letter with the last bill. And do it opt in of course. Old people are exactly the type of people that would carefully study letters that come in the post. Unlike people my age that would bin anything that comes with the bill thinking it's probably just commercial crap. But of course this is precisely the reason they do it by email. Dark pattern..
> And do it opt in of course. In my case, ISP charges you extra if you decide to keep the paper bills instead going for "eco bill" pdf file send by an email; same goes if you decide to opt-out from company selling your number elsewhere. Last time while getting new contract, 3 different people at local company's office tried to convince me that I can "win some fantastic rewards" if I decide to let them do with my numb…
I've had to assist an elderly neighbour after her phone company cut off her phone service. Why? The way she had paid for it for the preceding 40 years was she would get the paper bill in mail, and then go down to the post office and organise payment using the details in that paper bill. They switched her over to paperless billing with an email that they've done so but you can opt out. She either did not understand th…
I worked in a related field and the cost of this is really not the postage. Your billing system needs to support sending paper bills, everywhere you have customer communication you'll need to add the paper way, the format is different, you still need a way for your billing system to actually send those letters, you accounting needs to check for it etc etc. Also, every time you discuss a change in your systems, you need to consider the edge case of these 12 customers.
The letters themselves are cheap, supporting paper in every system you have is the real cost. I agree that they should have handled this better, no questions asked, but it's not like we're just talking about pennies in postage.
I've had to assist an elderly neighbour after her phone company cut off her phone service. Why? The way she had paid for it for the preceding 40 years was she would get the paper bill in mail, and then go down to the post office and organise payment using the details in that paper bill. They switched her over to paperless billing with an email that they've done so but you can opt out. She either did not understand th…
My bank (Bank of America) has this "dark pattern" where they try to switch you to paperless statements and billing every time you log into their website. Each time you log in you get a popup about paperless billing. If you click the "default" big button, you've opted in to it. You have to look for a little tiny text link to keep getting paper bills. I'm only 59, but without my paper bills, I've missed a few deadlines…
I'm 29 and the same thing also happened to me. It's also so annoying that every time you have to log in into their website to download the bill... They could at least email it to you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As if the cost for those few bills make a dent in a bank's operating costs. The government invents money by the billions die these guys. The least they can do is provide some service.
This is very unlogical: Gov creates money not the banks. They do have operational costs. And it is not one person who needs to accept checks, every branch has to support this. I have not been to a bank for the last 10 years. They are obsolete. And those buildings are expensive and they have to be able to compete with online banks. It's not even an option for them to just keep those buildings.
Computers or at least services should be intuitive you a noob or an expert should not need to decipher what to do next.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This was my experience for years when I worked in tech support. It seemed like every computer task was just a list of steps. They had to ask "do I left-click, or right-click" on every step, because they had developed no "theory" for what a left-click is, and why you'd use it vs. a right-click. It seemed like if they ever missed a step, or a step required them to deviate from their plan, they were entirely lost. I hav…
> I also want to be clear: I'm not mocking anyone for lack of knowledge here. One of the persons in my sample is my father. He had an introduction to what must have been OS/2 Warp and even had a computer in the office, but never used it (there was still a secretary). In his retirement, he bought a book binder course on how to use an early version of Windows, but hadn't a computer to try it on his own, so this was yet…
I've observed that any kind of "mode" that isn't extremely clear, visually is terrible for these sorts of folks (and, as with most things that give them trouble, are really terrible for everyone, we're just better at working past it than they are). Tabs that aren't extremely visually clear will leave these users "stuck" on the wrong one without realizing there even are tabs; filters or searches that don't make it super clear that you're "in" a filter or search will make them wonder where the hell all their stuff went, that kind of thing.