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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)

#91

Post by fragmede »

t34543 wrote: post #49
mquander wrote: post #25

It frustrates me that the takeaway of this post, and the implicit conclusion of many software designers, is "keep it extremely simple, or two thirds of the population can’t use your design." I think a better conclusion is "if these skills are important, design software which aids in and rewards the development of them." If your software is designed with some UX which is hyper-optimized to get users to do some small h…

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 far easier and far faster to just Google how to do something, rather than figure out eg which particular permissions system you want to be in, in order to be allowed to do a particular action.

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

#92

Post by crispinb »

I don't find this even slightly surprising.

I did a further degree (not tech) just a few years back at my local uni which put me more in touch with regular, non-techy young folk than I'd had for years. I was assured by everyone (despite their knowing that I'm a programmer) that the digital natives would run rings around me with their mad internet & computing skills. I've also done a fair bit of "Code Club" style volunteer teaching at a local library.

What I find is cohorts of young people most of whom have desktops covered in files not because they're intrinsically messy people, but because they have no idea how to manage files elsewhere (and would lose them if they tried). And whose internet-based research skills are no different from my 83 year old mother's. They're more confident, and hence more willing to try things, but no more knowledgeable. What intuitions growing up with computers has equipped them with mostly relates to a few narrow & specialised corporate interfaces (Facebook, Instagram et al).

Our educational institutions (here in Aus anyway) do a lousy job of teaching people to use computers. And our computing industry's approach to human factors is an unmitigated shitshow.

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

#93

Post by tomc1985 »

And this is why software sucks. We should focus on educating users, not stooping to their level

GUIs of old had a specific design language. Like: File, Edit, Window, Help in the menubar -- always consistent, always in the same order, and always containing the same thing. Min/max/close buttons in the upper-right. And so on. If one knows the GUI language they can use almost any application for many solutions at a basic level. This knowledge is getting forgotten as "designers" take creative steps to eliminate seemingly all thought that goes along with software usage. Nowadays "user-friendly" software has 100 different ideas about how to accomplish a task and it almost always involves hiding scary things from stupid users. Which also means that when something goes wrong you have no control over fixing it -- you're simply fucked. Unlike the past when there was usually an option checkbox buried in a comprehensive Preferences window, and you could disable/modify the unwanted behavior.

Ironically seemingly every app has to insult me with oftentimes unskippable tutorials and announcements just to reveal features that should have been easy to discover, but aren't, because the design language and UI standards have been forgotten and/or ignored.

Extensability and control should be WAY more important than catering to the most ignorant users.

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

#94

Post by PinkMilkshake »

t34543 wrote: post #49
mquander wrote: post #25

It frustrates me that the takeaway of this post, and the implicit conclusion of many software designers, is "keep it extremely simple, or two thirds of the population can’t use your design." I think a better conclusion is "if these skills are important, design software which aids in and rewards the development of them." If your software is designed with some UX which is hyper-optimized to get users to do some small h…

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?

My understanding was that Snapchat is like that on purpose. Facebook became uncool with younger people because it became cool with older people. Snapchat want to avoid that, so the overuse of hidden gestures acts like a filter. I found it almost impenetrable (I'm over 30) and I had to ask my friends 18 year old sister how to use it.

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

#95

Post by rsnor »

scarface74 wrote: post #76
chongli wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the car analogy used regularly and I think it’s completely off base. A much better analogy for computer skills is literacy and numeracy. We don’t tell people “don’t bother learning how to read, you can listen to audio books on audible!” just as we shouldn’t tell people that computer programming is only for professional software developers (or anything else involving intensive skill mastery related to computers)…

And car mechanics would look at you just as derisively for not knowing how to fix your own car. They would also say that fixing a car isn’t just for professionals. The average person doesn’t need to know how to program any more than the average programmer needs to know assembly (I do). Everyone is ignorant to someone who doesn’t knows something that they do.

Is it fair to say that because there will always be more specialized skills to be learned, that none should be learned?

Everyone may not need to know how to repair their car, but to perform basic, routine maintenance on it and to learn driving technique as intended is something that, when neglected, can cause major inefficiencies.

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

#96

Post by Swizec »

baroffoos wrote: post #68
Spivak wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to use a computer is like being able to drive a car. After a little practice and learning a few rules most cars are pretty easy to just get in and drive. It takes a little more effort to learn to drive stick, and formula one cars are only driven by professionals. Computer programming is like building, modding, or repairing your car — you can learn but it’s an activity done basically only by hobbyists and p…

Pretty much right. Yes its useful for almost anyone to know programming but we can't learn everything in the world that's useful. A carpenter is probably thinking its crazy I can't build my own bench and have to pay loads more for someone else to do it.

You can make a bench with 4 cinder blocks and a plank. Now a good bench ...

I guess the equivalent in computing would be spreadsheets? You can automate and build awesome things but god help you if you wanna move it somewhere else

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

#97

Post by kevinguh »

Something I'm left wondering about is whether there is a difference in proficiency between laptop/desktop-based apps and mobile apps. This study seems to define a computer as a laptop or desktop machine which may've made sense given the study started in 2011 when mobile computing was still relatively nascent, but the time span of the study from 2011-2015 encompasses a period of pretty expansive mobile adoption (IIRC I didn't even get my first smartphone until 2012). Moreover, my impression is mobile penetration outstrips that of sit-down machines (someone please correct me if I'm mistaken) so for some demographics their primary understanding of a "computer" could be from the perspective of a mobile device. If that is the case then perhaps that introduces a caveat to the scoring -- mobile and desktop experiences are quite different and someone coming to a desktop-based interface from a mobile-first background might score more poorly on the test than their actual level of technical proficiency would suggest.

Additionally, it seems to me that a lot of more recent interface designs seem to converge in the overall UX. Perhaps it's a result of standards like Material Design/Apple Guidelines and frameworks like Bootstrap and Semantic UI being published, but whatever the reason I think it has the benefit of reducing the learning curve for new products and making them easier to navigate. Even though this study concluded only 4 years ago in 2015, tech trends move fast and I personally think its measure of users' computer skills may be a bit dated in the context of today's tech landscape. This could just as well be my perspective from inside the bubble though, so here's your grain of salt with all of the above

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

#98

Post by rjf72 »

userbinator wrote: post #28

Interesting to see that Japan both has the most "can't use computers" and "strong" users... I've personally observed (and had to help) many times where an otherwise extremely intelligent person seems to completely lose his/her brain upon being seated in front of a computer, and wonder why that is; these people can be experts in various other fields involving significant mental ability (e.g. maths, physics, chemistry)…

Peruse the posts in this thread and I think you can see your answer. Many people seem to be literally happy to accept ignorance in fields outside their expertise. There's one exchange near the top of this thread that's been repeated multiple times with the specifics swapped. A user suggested that people would benefit from learning the basics of car maintenance - changing fluids, brake pads, etc.. It's downvoted with numerous comments responded essentially arguing 'why, when I can pay somebody else to do it?'

Those are trivial skills that take a matter of minutes to learn, and for which there are countless step by step guides available online. I'm certain that car mechanics have had this exact same conversation with the nouns changed about. How can somebody who is an expert in e.g. computer science, not manage to take a few minutes to learn how to change their fluids or pads? Skills that would not only improve their independence and knowledge but also save them thousands of dollars over time? And indeed even when given illustration of how to do so, some people just seem to be arguably voluntarily incompetent. I think it's the same thing with computers as I've observed the exact same thing, as I imagine everybody has. Some people just don't want to learn things outside their domain, and seem to become voluntarily incompetent when facing those problems.

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

#99

Post by scarface74 »

rsnor wrote: post #95
scarface74 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And car mechanics would look at you just as derisively for not knowing how to fix your own car. They would also say that fixing a car isn’t just for professionals. The average person doesn’t need to know how to program any more than the average programmer needs to know assembly (I do). Everyone is ignorant to someone who doesn’t knows something that they do.

Is it fair to say that because there will always be more specialized skills to be learned, that none should be learned? Everyone may not need to know how to repair their car, but to perform basic, routine maintenance on it and to learn driving technique as intended is something that, when neglected, can cause major inefficiencies.

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 when you don’t specialize. Why is car maintenance anything that everyone should know and not plumbing, electrical work or carpentry?

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

#100

Post by squeaky-clean »

t34543 wrote: post #49
mquander wrote: post #25

It frustrates me that the takeaway of this post, and the implicit conclusion of many software designers, is "keep it extremely simple, or two thirds of the population can’t use your design." I think a better conclusion is "if these skills are important, design software which aids in and rewards the development of them." If your software is designed with some UX which is hyper-optimized to get users to do some small h…

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?

Snapchat is a weird edge case because they've claimed they intentionally made some features difficult to find in the UX to encourage conversation about the app.

Don't know if it actually pays off positively for them, because I also find it confusing. But there's definitely been many moments of "Whoa, You can add a friend that way? You can do this by holding that button down?" etc

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