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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)

#191

Post by cameronbrown »

fragmede wrote: post #91
t34543 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve got 20 years in tech and I find products like Snapchat extremely difficult to use. It’s NOT intuitive at all. Is it just me, or is it terrible?

This is the information age. Just Google it. I don't meant that flippantly. One of their best features, the Snap Map, is nigh undiscoverable. But after seeing someone else use it and being unable to figure out how to access it, Google was able to tell me. It's absolutely a failure of their UX but say, what's the discoverability of regexps with and without Google? Jira also suffers from the same problem - it's often f…

Usually with Snapchat, new features spread organically. Teens show other teens how it works, etc..

Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)

#192

Post by dusted »

scarface74 wrote: post #175
dusted wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you absolutely should. And they should make cars easier for everyone to repair too.

Should I also know how to do my own plumbing and electrical work? Carpentry? Go out and hunt and grow a garden?

Absolutely. We should strive to master our surroundings. One thing is choosing not to repair your car today, because you have other things that give you greater value, another thing is not having the choice to repair it because you don't know how to. At a minimum, a human should know basic operating principles, repair and maintenance of their machines and buildings. Unfortunately, as most people chose to remain ignorant to their surroundings, manufactures get away with making devices less and less serviceable.

Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)

#193

Post by cameronbrown »

eru wrote: post #149
smileysteve wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (I don't even know whether you still have to manually check the level of oil? Don't they have sensors for that these days?) Most cars do have sensors for this, but they often fail, and even if they're working fine, tell you at a warning level, not at a full level. If you want to be a prepared driver you'd check your fluids regularly, but especially before long trips; The bonus is that the sensors can't tell you tha…

Interesting. Do you know why the sensors seem to have a binary output only, as opposed to checking for full level and dirt? If we put our minds to it, these days we can often make sensors that are much better than humans for these kinds of applications. Btw, you are talking about the former US president Obama? Seems a bit weird for him to care about car maintenance?

> Btw, you are talking about the former US president Obama? Seems a bit weird for him to care about car maintenance?

Why wouldn't the President care about the safety of millions of potential death traps driving to work daily?

Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)

#194

Post by scarface74 »

michaelmrose wrote: post #127
scarface74 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of things I could save money on, but I make a good living developing software so I can pay other people to fix my car, press my clothes, mow my lawn, etc. I work during the week, money gets deposited in my account so I can enjoy the weekend doing things I want. We even spend extra going to restaurants so we don’t have to cook!

80-90% of people earn less

The average car is almost 12 years old (https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/average-vehicle-age-incre...) and most people aren’t fixing their own car. That means most people can afford the maintenance needed to keep a car on the road.

As many dry cleaners that I see even in the less affluent parts of the city, people are able to afford to do that too.

Most less affluent people who do own their own home (as well as many who could afford it) do cut their own grass.

Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)

#195

Post by scarface74 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #145
scarface74 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or I can, drop my car off on the way to work, take the shuttle to work, take Uber home, or bring my laptop with me and earn my living doing what I’ve done for 30 years and pay someone else to do it...

You are a rich person with money to burn and a job that offers you time liquidity. Most people have neither, which is why - and not because of their irrationality - arguments from opportunity cost don't work as well as one would expect.

Seeing that “most people” are paying someone else to fix their car, that means that most people find a way to pay other people to do it instead of learning how to do it themselves.

Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)

#196

Post by agent008t »

Angostura wrote: post #153
agent008t wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Linux/Windows computer in a household is a device that allows both consuming and creating. Many, if not most of us got into creating using a computer just by having access to one and being curious. An iPhone or an iPad is just a device for consumption. It completely hides, if not locks you out of, the underlying workings of the device, meaning that you learn nothing and you create nothing.

You should have a play with Shortcuts on the iPhone - or Swift Playground, or any other the plethora of 3rd party coding platforms that run on iOS.

By being given an iPhone/iPad and clicking around, you wouldn't even learn about what a filesystem is, let alone about anything else in terms of how your device works.

On a PC, just by being bored you can learn quite a bit about how the OS works; you can access devtools from a browser; you can learn tons and tons by trying to get some old/obscure game to work; you can google "how to make a game" which would probably lead you to a download page for python, which you could install and start writing some scripts; you could easily stumble upon Blender and some tutorials and start 3D modelling.

Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)

#197

Post by poizan42 »

userbinator wrote: post #185
EliRivers wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned very thoroughly that the software version details were under "Help -> About". If it's not there, I'm not only stumped; I'm genuinely angry. That doesn't have to be logical; emotional reactions happen by themselves. Making me angry with your software is not good for sales. Running on my desktop this very second; Postman. "Help" has no about. It has a "Check for Updates", but that doesn't tell me my current v…

Newer versions of MS Office (with that ribbon) have the same problem. There is an About dialog, but getting to it is a process that I still can't remember after having to do it a few times. Yet Help->About is still in my mind after all these years, despite not using it all that much. The idiotic full screen save menu that forces you to click a few more times to save on the computer instead of a cloud service (I'm sur…

It's at File->Account->About . Because it totally makes sense to put the about box under Account...

I should also mention that there isn't even a Help menu anymore, because nobody would have a need for help with anything in Microsoft Office, right? You can still get help if you know about F1 though.

Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)

#198

Post by scarface74 »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #115
scarface74 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specialization says just the opposite. That everyone should specialize in a combination of what they are good at and there is a demand because it is much more efficient and trade those goods and services that they specialize in for goods and services that they don’t. In the modern era instead of trading directly, we use money as an intermediary. Economics 101 says just the opposite, that you create inefficiencies whe…

> Economics 101 says just the opposite, that you create inefficiencies when you don’t specialize. That's simply bullshit. If you specialize on only installing tires on cars, but not removing them, you have specialized more than a business that swaps your tires, but you have created massive inefficiency by requiring your customers to somehow move around vehicles without tires for you to install tires for them. There a…

And you left out the part where I said “and there is a demand”. There is no demand for someone who can remove a tire but not install it....

Every specialization is about knowing the level of integration and specialization.

Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)

#199

Post by ClumsyPilot »

RhysU wrote: post #168
alpaca128 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some users just don't want to learn. 100% agree. It took my grandma about two weeks with a tablet to figure out by herself how to look up oil prices in the web browser. It was the first device she ever used that was more powerful than an old Nokia mobile phone and her first contact with the internet. We never taught her what a web browser was or how to use it. Meanwhile my mother used a laptop and smartphone for ye…

> ... how to look up oil prices in the web browser. Grandma usually trades oil contracts by phone? Or Grandma heats with oil and needs a refill? Or Grandma has a salad dressing factory? Or...

So many possibilities!

Re: The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think (2016)

#200

Post by scarface74 »

dusted wrote: post #192
scarface74 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should I also know how to do my own plumbing and electrical work? Carpentry? Go out and hunt and grow a garden?

Absolutely. We should strive to master our surroundings. One thing is choosing not to repair your car today, because you have other things that give you greater value, another thing is not having the choice to repair it because you don't know how to. At a minimum, a human should know basic operating principles, repair and maintenance of their machines and buildings. Unfortunately, as most people chose to remain ignor…

At what level should I know it? There is a famous essay “I pencil” that posits no one person knows how to create a pencil (http://www.joshharness.com/2012/10/nobody-knows-how-to-make-...)
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