How could the scale be reasonably expanded? "Level 4: can create the tools needed to solve the task"? PS: shout-out and thanks to ben_w who mentioned this article in the discussion about the Algerian internet shutdowns.
“Can open the command line”
The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
31–40 of 63 posts
Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#32> You are not the user This is where you will find your true 10x'ers. The developer who is so intelligent and experienced that they can accurately emulate an entire "level 1" user in their own brain for purposes of testing a UX/UI concept. Putting both a really clever design and a really stupid user into your head at the same time is very challenging. But, if you can figure out how to pull this off, you can rapidly a…
Why is the developer responsible for UI design? I certainly think developers should be involved in UI design, but I don't think they should be the main decision makers in most cases, precisely because "putting both a really clever design and a really stupid user into your head at the same time is very challenging," and I wouldn't expect it to necessarily correlate with programming skill.
The developer must be fundamentally responsible for all aspects of the final delivered solution. Diffusion of responsibility will otherwise tend to lead the project towards a non-ideal user experience. If UI design is "someone else's problem", I might be tempted to take certain shortcuts at code time (e.g. assuming there is only 1 view of the data model - how could I know? Not my problem area).
Not saying you can't employ a UI designer who does this full-time, but the final software product and the entire experience around it is still the developer's full responsibility. With this in mind, perhaps we'd like the developers to be more involved with UI design meetings?
All of this gets me back to the front-end/back-end meme that seems to have emerged over the last decade. Same sort of problem. All you do with this "not my problem" game is make your own life harder the next iteration.
So to be clear - I am not saying you have to do the whole product yourself, but I am saying that you need to care enough about it or it's going to turn out like shit. Writing software that people use is still decidedly an art form. Imagine paying to go to an art gallery filled with pieces created by artists who absolutely hate to make art.
Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#33[dead]
Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#34One of the biggest problems of people using computers is fear. It impedes any exploratory activity and therefore learning how to use a computer. The first thing everyone has to be taught (again and again), try stuff out and don't be afraid to break things. It's just software. (taking care of your data and backups are the topic of another lesson :-)
The issue is that you have the skills to fix it, but if I, as ignorant user A break something, I can't fix it. So I just bricked an expensive piece of equipment that I may not be able to replace, and I may not know who to even talk to in order to get it fixed, and when I do know who to talk to, it's the neighbor who works in something called infosec and I think that's computers but why is he so annoyed when I ask for help.
Or, I can just leave it alone and not tinker with it so that I can still play my match three game and send funny pictures to my sister.
Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is the developer responsible for UI design? I certainly think developers should be involved in UI design, but I don't think they should be the main decision makers in most cases, precisely because "putting both a really clever design and a really stupid user into your head at the same time is very challenging," and I wouldn't expect it to necessarily correlate with programming skill.
The developer must be fundamentally responsible for all aspects of the final delivered solution. Diffusion of responsibility will otherwise tend to lead the project towards a non-ideal user experience. If UI design is "someone else's problem", I might be tempted to take certain shortcuts at code time (e.g. assuming there is only 1 view of the data model - how could I know? Not my problem area). Not saying you can't e…
I would not put the needle that far over. The person responsible for the total user experience, and the PM are responsible for the overall design.
The developer is not.
Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#36It's the tools that suck, not the users. If you have two folders open in Microsoft Windows, and drag an item from one to the other... there are 3 possible actions (as of a decade ago) that might happen according to an set of rules the user can't be expected to know.... It might copy the file it might create a shortcut to the file it might move the file This is just a tiny example of the inconsistency of one of the ol…
> there are 3 possible actions (as of a decade ago) that might happen according to an set of rules the user can't be expected to know.... At least the icon changed based on which action was going to happen. Knowing to look for that icon change, on the other hand...
You can also force a specific action by holding shift, ctrl, or alt before dropping.
Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#37> You are not the user This is where you will find your true 10x'ers. The developer who is so intelligent and experienced that they can accurately emulate an entire "level 1" user in their own brain for purposes of testing a UX/UI concept. Putting both a really clever design and a really stupid user into your head at the same time is very challenging. But, if you can figure out how to pull this off, you can rapidly a…
Why is the developer responsible for UI design? I certainly think developers should be involved in UI design, but I don't think they should be the main decision makers in most cases, precisely because "putting both a really clever design and a really stupid user into your head at the same time is very challenging," and I wouldn't expect it to necessarily correlate with programming skill.
> I wouldn't expect it to necessarily overlap with programming skill.
What is programming skill? For loops and writing a recusion function?
If you ever talk to a lawyer, they're not just robots that regurgitate the law, they can can give you good advice on mediation, and alternative means of resolving conflict. They'll aks you things like "are you sure you want to go through this, this is what this entails, etc." They don't just go "I only the know the law, I don't have a background in pschology, anthropology, sociology".
If you're a salesperson, you should know something about the product you're selling and have some communication skills. They don't just go "I am only here to show you to the car we're selling, I don't have a communications degree, I don't know how to offer you a deal".
Sometimes it feels like only in software are people so coddled that they think this stuff is normal. People will hire with leetcode as a strong signal and have stack ranking, and then somehow think that the streotypes of devs only being goot at logic puzzles and lacking human understanding are true.
Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#38I've recently been looking again at microSD cards at the popular electronics online shop in my country.
Every 1 star review I have seen is because the customer has been unable to make the card show up on their computer.
I have to consciously remind myself that it's almost always because they don't know how to format a storage device, not because the cards are faulty out of the box.
Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#39How could the scale be reasonably expanded? "Level 4: can create the tools needed to solve the task"? PS: shout-out and thanks to ben_w who mentioned this article in the discussion about the Algerian internet shutdowns.
“Can open the command line”
I was tempted to expand that with "without pasting a malicious command in it", with Discord users being tricked into doing this in their Chrome console as the example.
However, most of HN is curl-bashing unverified scripts into their computers and servers...
Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)
#40I was quite surprised to read that about a quarter of the participants weren't able to delete an email in their email app (the "Can't Use Computers" group). This was 2016, though, so maybe things have changed drastically since then. Does anyone know of a related, but more recent study?
I had the same perception, but if you read the paragraph closely it says that folks at “Below Level 1” can delete an email, and that’s about as complicated a thing as they can do.
I was confused by that, too. But I think there are two classes here: The "Below Level 1" group, that is capable of deleting emails, and the "Can't Use Computer" group, that is unable to do so. The latter group contained 26% of all participants.