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“What’s a Browser?” – Remembering the Non-Tech-Savvy User

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Re: “What’s a Browser?” – Remembering the Non-Tech-Savvy User

#31

Post by pestaa »

gcb0 wrote: post #25
MarcScott wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a teacher of Computing, I couldn't agree more. I've blogged about it here http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-co... Habits I see daily include: typing domain names into search bars, using Caps Lock to type a single uppercase letter, holding down off buttons to 'shutdown' a computer, using passwords like asdfg1234.

The whole issue with the industry (specially here) is that the drive to just make it work completely obliviates the user. Maybe we should strive to better inform while making it just work.

In my opinion there's no fix for lack of curiosity.

Re: “What’s a Browser?” – Remembering the Non-Tech-Savvy User

#32

Post by chrischen »

jmuguy wrote: post #22

Working in Windows IT with small businesses you run into a lot of non-savvy users. We tolerate a lot of simple issues, I mean simple issues are our bread and butter sometimes, but it can be a little ridiculous. I expect the average office user to know a few things. To remember their username. To be able to choose a different printer than the default. My opinion is that their job, their paycheck, depends on their work…

Skeuomorphism to the rescue!

Re: “What’s a Browser?” – Remembering the Non-Tech-Savvy User

#33

Post by wutbrodo »

recursive wrote: post #30
GeneralMayhem wrote: post #26

Why do we need to remember these people? Car manufacturers don't have to say "wait, what if they don't know what a door handle is."

A door handle is much simpler concept. Car manufacturers do have to say "wait, what if they don't know what a transmission is?"

I don't know about that. It seems like the complexity of operating a car (at least in terms of "# of things you need to know about") is pretty similar to that of a computer (at least on Linux/Mac systems; Windows is needlessly complicated for the non-tech-savvy user imo).

In a car the things you HAVE to understand are the shifter, (P/D/N), the interplay between gas/brake/coasting (which is more complex than it sounds; just ask any new driver), the array of necessary controls for auxiliary devices (headlights, windshield wipers, side-view mirror controls, etc). EDIT: forgot the emergency brake, and all the rules/mechanics of the road (stop signs, parking on a hill, left turns, right turns, etc etc etc etc)

For a computer, for most people's day-to-day usage, the only things you really need to understand are: logging in to the computer, the browser, Google, and the URL bar (technically optional, as many people use Google directly for everything). I understand that, complexity-wise, each of these don't match up one-to-one with the car example, but the fact remains that with very little effort, and almost no "under-the-hood" understanding, you can become what passes for "savvy" these days.

Anecdotally, my dad has always been extremely non-tech-savvy; He had _years_ of being set in his cargo cult usage of his computer (in which he didn't really distinguish between having a browser open and being on his att yahoo homepage, having a window minimized and having it closed, logging into yahoo and logging into the computer, etc). I was able to explain to him the 3 or 4 pieces that fit together using a simple example (e.g. "websites are places you go, the browser is the vehicle that gets you there", etc). He still doesn't necessarily understand anything even marginally under-the-hood; But he understands the operation of a computer (for his purposes) pretty solidly, and no longer has the issue of being helpless when the situation he encounters deviates slightly from what he's used to (i.e. opening the browser and not being logged in to yahoo, for whatever reason).

Re: “What’s a Browser?” – Remembering the Non-Tech-Savvy User

#34

Post by zachrose »

MarcScott wrote: post #17
bowlofpetunias wrote: post #14

Here's the kicker: most of these non-tech-savvy users are not the older generation. They are the younger generation. The generation that is used to tech that "just works", without ever having to figure out why it doesn't.

As a teacher of Computing, I couldn't agree more. I've blogged about it here http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-co... Habits I see daily include: typing domain names into search bars, using Caps Lock to type a single uppercase letter, holding down off buttons to 'shutdown' a computer, using passwords like asdfg1234.

Funnily enough though, all of those things get the job done.

Re: “What’s a Browser?” – Remembering the Non-Tech-Savvy User

#35

Post by pestaa »

Ziomislaw wrote: post #24
jmuguy wrote: post #22

Working in Windows IT with small businesses you run into a lot of non-savvy users. We tolerate a lot of simple issues, I mean simple issues are our bread and butter sometimes, but it can be a little ridiculous. I expect the average office user to know a few things. To remember their username. To be able to choose a different printer than the default. My opinion is that their job, their paycheck, depends on their work…

heh, reminds me of office ladies using calculator to _type_ a proper sum of a column into XLS (using computer for 10+ years doing THE SAME THING)

I've heard worse. One such office worker is tasked to duplicate an Excel file. She does so by printing the original one, manually drawing the grids with pen and ruler, labeling the columns, and then typing it all in cell by cell.

She works by the hour and earns massive amount of cash.

Re: “What’s a Browser?” – Remembering the Non-Tech-Savvy User

#36

Post by wutbrodo »

ahoy wrote: post #7
kaoD wrote: post #4

Related: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ Asking passersby in Times Square what is a browser.

What's most interesting about this, I think, is people's unwillingness to admit they don't know something. No one wants to look stupid, or ignorant, or uneducated, even in front of complete strangers. I'm certainly guilty of this, I suspect most of us are.

Hell if anything (at least for me), doing it in front of complete strangers makes it way worse. I freely admit ignorance to people I know even slightly well; they already know I'm a certain level of intelligence, so I don't worry as much about one contradictory data pt. By contrast, in front of strangers, the only thing they'll know about me is my ignorance in that situation.

Re: “What’s a Browser?” – Remembering the Non-Tech-Savvy User

#37

Post by wutbrodo »

ucarion wrote: post #12

I imagine most fields have a lot of jargon too; it's just that technology is one of the few areas that has become essentially ubiquitous, so we notice the difference between technology-savvy and non-technology-savvy more often. I imagine that in the eyes of tax experts, we are all totally ignorant of how we could make the most out of the tax system.

In my opinion, that's exactly the problem. I don't understand how people don't do the math in their head that spending half an hour learning* to be more efficient at something that you use for hours and hours every day is worth it. I couldn't get my oft-texting mom to switch to T9 (back in the era of dumbphones) because she didn't want to "waste her time" (though she was fine constantly pecking out texts more than twice as slowly as she could have been). I finally convinced my mom once she saw that it only took my _grandma_ a day to pick it up.

*Even just by asking a friend. In my experience, tech-savvy friends (including myself) are extremely willing to explain how things work, since it's a welcome respite from "just fix it"

Re: “What’s a Browser?” – Remembering the Non-Tech-Savvy User

#39

Post by RyJones »

jmuguy wrote: post #22

Working in Windows IT with small businesses you run into a lot of non-savvy users. We tolerate a lot of simple issues, I mean simple issues are our bread and butter sometimes, but it can be a little ridiculous. I expect the average office user to know a few things. To remember their username. To be able to choose a different printer than the default. My opinion is that their job, their paycheck, depends on their work…

I rather liked amazon's solution to the printer selection issue: there is a badge reader on every printer, when you print something it goes to the Great Spooler In The Cloud, when you want it to emit as paper you walk to the printer you want, badge in, and it prints your items. The UI is wonky and slow, but it's better than the solution I've seen everywhere else: the stack of orphan printouts from someone that moved to another building/city long ago.

Re: “What’s a Browser?” – Remembering the Non-Tech-Savvy User

#40

Post by freehunter »

M4v3R wrote: post #8

> I got her to show me how she used the computer; she got into Facebook by typing Facebook into Bing and clicking on the search result. This is so common to non tech-savvy people (I observed this dozens of time) that it makes you wonder why browsers adopted single bar for searching AND entering the URLs so late. This, when implemented properly, solves the problem, because usually you only need to type just few letter…

I had a Java professor who would load up a browser and use the Google search box on the school's homepage to search for Yahoo and then put a URL into the Yahoo search page. Most infuriating thing I've ever seen.
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