I go through this EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY. And when I try to correct someone, all of a sudden, I'm some sort of "elitist".

I just pull a Nick Burns.


MOOOOVE.

This is my life, so often. It has honestly contributed to my social anxiety, which is pretty much peaked right now. Increasingly for years I could not go to a party or accept a dinner invitation without being shuffled into the home office to fix some vague problem like "my computer is slow"... especially in the dark malware-ridden days of XP's mid-life in 2003-2005.

Over the past five years I've gone from freely helping anyone who asks, even offering in many cases, to downplaying my computer skills, telling them "I don't know" or "I can't help you" even if it's a lie, and most satisfyingly of all: simply saying "No, I'm too busy" or "Sure, $100 per hour" or "If I were a race car driver would you want me to fix your car? For free!?" .. depending on the relationship. Immediate family and like-family friends are of course excepted.

The level of computer "skills" in the average home or workplace is really pathetic. I have clients who can't absorb the concept of cut-and-paste. I always get messages from them saying "the client says the link is broken" because I've sent them a complex URL which they re-typed manually into a word document instead of just forwarding or at least using cut and paste.

>> ^budzos:
This is my life, so often. It has honestly contributed to my social anxiety, which is pretty much peaked right now. Increasingly for years I could not go to a party or accept a dinner invitation without being shuffled into the home office to fix some vague problem like "my computer is slow"... especially in the dark malware-ridden days of XP's mid-life in 2003-2005.
Over the past five years I've gone from freely helping anyone who asks, even offering in many cases, to downplaying my computer skills, telling them "I don't know" or "I can't help you" even if it's a lie, and most satisfyingly of all: simply saying "No, I'm too busy" or "Sure, $100 per hour" or "If I were a race car driver would you want me to fix your car? For free!?" .. depending on the relationship. Immediate family and like-family friends are of course excepted.
The level of computer "skills" in the average home or workplace is really pathetic. I have clients who can't absorb the concept of cut-and-paste. I always get messages from them saying "the client says the link is broken" because I've sent them a complex URL which they re-typed manually into a word document instead of just forwarding or at least using cut and paste.



It's ok...one day soon these people will be dead, and we'll be the ones calling our younger co-workers over to help us use our virtual reality gloves on our augmented reality projectors.

"No you have to grab the file with your left hand and shake your right index finger to paste your selections," they'll say with a disgusted look on their face.

...and their music? Their music will just be a solid wall of noise and pitches with strange mumbling. We'll have to tell them about real music that talked about things like slappin' hoes and fuckin' bitches.

I can relate. But it just made me realize how bizarre our reaction is. I guess we automatically imagine ourselves in their position so well that their mistakes are somehow personally frustrating. It's a bit like watching a horror movie where the characters do no end of stupid clueless shit and you just want to strangle them.

Yeah, can relate indeed. BUT am also very good at pretending I don't know what I know and seeing it from their point of view. YOU know you can do these things I know you can do these things, but where does it really tell them from the interface that they can?

I do a lot of interface coding and have, in the past, been the head of the support team for a very large ISP and you have to put yourself in their shoes, without all the learned conventions that we have on how interfaces 'should just work'.

It's like when I do stuff on a Mac, so many of the things I take for granted in Windows don't work there, and work differently, and I used to go 'oh, Macs are just shit, they are so hard to use'... but they're not, they're different. And anyone coming from a Mac to a Windows PC needs to be in the same mindset, they're not crap they're just different.

No, take that feeling of not knowing how things work and apply it to any computer, or TV, or PVR or DVD player etc.

I appreciate really good interface design and deplore ones where they assume you have read the manual just to use it. An interface should be completely usable via cues it gives you on how it works. (visual, textual, aural, haptic).

Just sayin'.... cut people some slack, they probably know a shit load more about some subject that you know jack shit about.

Been there, done that. They do the same to me because I do things differently too.

Original comic strip: http://i.imgur.com/6ETb4.gif

*music

Adding video to channels (Music) - requested by ant.

Ever tried to talk your parents through setting up some piece of electronics or computer setup over the phone? Maddening.

It's funny how so many jobs demand "computer-literacy" but that definition is pretty fast and loose. On the rare occasions I've had to call my ISP I just hope they appreciate how easily I can change TCP/IP settings. I like to imagine when my next call comes through they're clamouring to take it

I recall working on an internal support desk where one of the staff calling in had this ISDN line or something. Thing is "he" was a "she", going through some sort of change or whatever. The gender of the voice was really hard to pin so could lead to some awkward moments until you identified who it was. But worst of all they were an idiot anyway.

Oh and another time, someone who had LEFT called up the desk and tried to get support. Because she lived nearby she asked if I could come over and fix her computer. Bizarre. I just assumed she was a lonely nutcase.

>> ^rottenseed:

I go through this EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY. And when I try to correct someone, all of a sudden, I'm some sort of "elitist".


You should just go with it and wear a crown of some sort. The grander the better.

I knew a guy who would just google his sites each time. No bookmarks. Haven't seen him for years. I bet he's still doing it.

QFT
>> ^rottenseed:

It's ok...one day soon these people will be dead, and we'll be the ones calling our younger co-workers over to help us use our virtual reality gloves on our augmented reality projectors.
"No you have to grab the file with your left hand and shake your right index finger to paste your selections," they'll say with a disgusted look on their face.
...and their music? Their music will just be a solid wall of noise and pitches with strange mumbling. We'll have to tell them about real music that talked about things like slappin' hoes and fuckin' bitches.

[redacted]

I hate the term "Computer illiterate". Whenever I hear it, all I hear is "I can't read text on a monitor, that's why I haven't used the help menu". Maybe I'll start telling others I'm "car illiterate" to explain why I take it to a mechanic.

I taught my dad how to copy and paste recently.
This is somehow the same man who bought our first computer in 1990.
He recently retired, and was making hundreds of thousands of dollars/year.
I can't imagine the collective rage he instilled in IT departments between 1990 and 2010.

I lost it at double-clicking the hyperlink.

>> ^blankfist:

Ever tried to talk your parents through setting up some piece of electronics or computer setup over the phone? Maddening.


My mom is actually pretty good at being talkthru'd a computer procedure by phone. My dad's junk though, gets frustrated and pissy right away. Doesn't like being directed I guess, even though he's the one that asked for it.

>> ^Mcboinkens:

I never search using quotes and have never had a problem. I also didn't see what he was raging about with the scrollwheel. Can someone explain?


I assumed they are slowly click dragging the scroll bar which involves moving the mouse.
It's easier just to scroll using the wheel unless you need to jump down a fair bit. At that point I would use the scrollbar or hit Ctrl+Home or End.

BTW I listened to a friend's podcast and he gave our a URL. Before he read out the link he said; "H, t, t, p, colon, forward slash, forward slash".

I thought I stopped him doing that years ago.

I got my mother a Zune for xmas and the other day had to phonecall her through it.

In retrospect, the Zune was a terrible idea.

I used to be With IT. But then they changed what IT was. Now what I'm with isn't IT, and what's IT seems scary and wierd. It'll happen to YOU.>> ^rottenseed:

>> ^budzos:
This is my life, so often. It has honestly contributed to my social anxiety, which is pretty much peaked right now. Increasingly for years I could not go to a party or accept a dinner invitation without being shuffled into the home office to fix some vague problem like "my computer is slow"... especially in the dark malware-ridden days of XP's mid-life in 2003-2005.
Over the past five years I've gone from freely helping anyone who asks, even offering in many cases, to downplaying my computer skills, telling them "I don't know" or "I can't help you" even if it's a lie, and most satisfyingly of all: simply saying "No, I'm too busy" or "Sure, $100 per hour" or "If I were a race car driver would you want me to fix your car? For free!?" .. depending on the relationship. Immediate family and like-family friends are of course excepted.
The level of computer "skills" in the average home or workplace is really pathetic. I have clients who can't absorb the concept of cut-and-paste. I always get messages from them saying "the client says the link is broken" because I've sent them a complex URL which they re-typed manually into a word document instead of just forwarding or at least using cut and paste.


It's ok...one day soon these people will be dead, and we'll be the ones calling our younger co-workers over to help us use our virtual reality gloves on our augmented reality projectors.
"No you have to grab the file with your left hand and shake your right index finger to paste your selections," they'll say with a disgusted look on their face.
...and their music? Their music will just be a solid wall of noise and pitches with strange mumbling. We'll have to tell them about real music that talked about things like slappin' hoes and fuckin' bitches.

I had another call this week from a prospective design client who thought I might want to also throw in some tech support. It took me way too long to learn to just say "I am not in the tech support business, I pay people for tech support" when getting that kind of inquiry.

I just showed my brother the video while he was brushing his teeth,,,Lots of drool everywhere.

Relevant Reddit post

http://www.reddit.com/r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu/comments/f0vb3/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu_animated_watching_someone_use/

Ahhh the quotes. Always a pleasure when folks don't use them and freak out how many hits the combination of everyday-word and you-need-a-degree-in-hyperphysics gets them. That's the cost of oversimplification, if google only used a query language as sole input method...

This is why I love that I can remote on with my current job. No wasting time telling the client what to do and have them fumble about, I just take over and do it myself. Bliss.

That's one of those weird things that's REALLY hard to explain to a computer illiterate. Is there REALLY some system in what things you should click or double click? Click on folders in tree view to expand them. Double click on folders in the main view to open them. Try explaning that! Double click on items on the desktop. Single click on similar looking things in the browser...

Computers simply aren't that user friendly. They require you to find things out on your own. This is probably where the largest amount of fail comes from: computer illiterate people do not know how to find out things. Or rather, the easiest way they found was to call YOU, instead of doing a quick Google search or reading the manual.

Most of the time, when I help someone fix their "e-mail" that "bas become slow", I don't know what to do beforehand. No matter how many times I explain that I simply searched Google to find a solution, they still look at me like I just made it all up myself and think I know everything about every stupid piece of software.

Another thing. Norton PREYS on these people. Everyone I ever helped has that crapware installed, and you have to buy a new version every year. It does nothing but clog up the system with warnings about how EVERYTHING is just a disaster waiting to happen. WAIT! DO NOT SEND THAT EMAIL! THEY WILL STEAL YOUR BANK ACCOUNTS AND KIDNAP YOUR CHILDREN! PAY US! PAY US!