I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer.
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@jalefkowit @KentNavalesi This is a question of great and genuine interest to me.
My Apple ][+ was definitely a hard brick wall to somebody who’d never used one. Also, any specific piece of software behaved in extremely limited, extremely consistent ways, so that once somebody had learned to use it, they could continue using it.
My first-gen iPhone was a miraculous device. I could hand it to somebody who’d never used a touch screen or a “smart“ phone of any kind, and they would — without exception! I tried this experiment multiple times! — be able to figure out how to use it just by experimentation and intuition. I really don’t think that’s true of iPhones now. But a current iPhone offers far more capabilities.
Were computers easier or harder in the past? Or just •differently• hard? How? Whose needs have we prioritized? Whose comfort?
@inthehands @jalefkowit @KentNavalesi at the same time as the first iPhone was released, other phones (I worked for Symbian, a now extinct smartphone OS company) came with an extensive printed manual.
To be fair, you could guess most of it anyway but it shows the assumption that any device required a manual. -
@inthehands @jalefkowit @KentNavalesi The 70s micro and early DOS PC and Mac era, really the whole floppy/tape era, had another thing going for it: If something went wrong you just turned it off and on again. Nothing you did on your BASIC coding disk could break your homework disk. None of this "if my kid plays with my phone for a minute my e-mails will be deleted, $200 worth of burritos will show up at my doorstep, and my co-workers will receive ten photos of their potty" situation.
@mirth @inthehands @jalefkowit @KentNavalesi This is unintentionally a parable of increasing automation increases the scale of disasters, and I have to think about this for a while.
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I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer. And every single time, I walk away in incandescent rage at how hard we have made this stuff for people who have not spent their entire waking lives marinating in it
@jalefkowit Not computers per se, but as an example of usability improvements that got ruthlessly killed off by the dominant players - BlackBerry Hub: I've had to get someone off a BlackBerry 10 device when they were shutting down services for it and the most painful part was reintroducing them to the concept of "your messages live in several different apps". And then "most of them also try to silo you in by making it harder or impossible to forward things elsewhere".
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@mirth @inthehands @jalefkowit @KentNavalesi This is unintentionally a parable of increasing automation increases the scale of disasters, and I have to think about this for a while.
@sysadmin1138 @inthehands @jalefkowit @KentNavalesi Interesting way of looking at it. Computers also went from being mostly a calculating and storage thing to having communication be the primary use for a lot of people, which complicates the situation.
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@ajroach42 It's hard for *me*, a professional nerd who gets paid to understand this stuff. I have no idea how normal people haven't come for us with pitchforks and torches yet
@jalefkowit @ajroach42 I assume that it's not just because the developers, including people like us, don't test with 'normal' users (which is probably true) but testing UI for error conditions is very hard - you have to generate the errors on demand and then put in the effort.
Also, the rate of change is such that you don't get the chance to do full UI testing for all new versions.
So we're dependent on developers thinking about this - and most minimise thinking about error handling anyway
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@jalefkowit @ajroach42 I assume that it's not just because the developers, including people like us, don't test with 'normal' users (which is probably true) but testing UI for error conditions is very hard - you have to generate the errors on demand and then put in the effort.
Also, the rate of change is such that you don't get the chance to do full UI testing for all new versions.
So we're dependent on developers thinking about this - and most minimise thinking about error handling anyway@imcdowall @jalefkowit This is absolutely not why things suck.
The incentives of capitalism are towards Dark Patterns and systems that lie to you.
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I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer. And every single time, I walk away in incandescent rage at how hard we have made this stuff for people who have not spent their entire waking lives marinating in it
@jalefkowit @sjkilleen
Started with "hide the details from the user". No, don't(!), because now we even have experienced users who can't find what it is they need to resolve an issue
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Someone posted a reply saying that computers were harder in the past so it's fine they're hard now, which earned them an instant block. Thanks for identifying yourself as the kind of person I want nothing to do with
@jalefkowit well they're half-right. Computers were hard before GUIs became commonplace and mature.
But they conveniently glossed over the fact that there was a period of about 15 years when computers were easy. That ended when most companies that build software realized they could manipulate users instead of serving them, that they can ship "experiences" instead of tools.
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I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer. And every single time, I walk away in incandescent rage at how hard we have made this stuff for people who have not spent their entire waking lives marinating in it
Preach Brother! Preach!
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I occasionally help an elderly neighbor get stuff done with their computer. And every single time, I walk away in incandescent rage at how hard we have made this stuff for people who have not spent their entire waking lives marinating in it
@jalefkowit And it's not just dark patterns, often it's just clueless (or hype-following) designers. FFS make font sizes large enough for over 50 years olds to read. Yes, even when wearing glasses they're often way too small. And don't move around / rename / redesign buttons and menus all the time. And take into account that it takes elderly people easily ten times as long to do anything manual or requiring dexterity, like copy-n-pasting or selecting from a long menu etc.
