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The propeller beanie kingdom

If you are not yet familiar with Udolpho, I highly recommend becoming so. His blog archive has two excellent posts "Why you should never listen to geeks, and in fact should despise them" and "Why do geeks have such bad taste?"

I was reminded of these two posts when I saw the article "10 classic clueless-user stories". I could not think of a better example of why tech support geeks are stupid. Consider:

5. One of our marketing managers complained that he couldn't make any sense of a telephone management spreadsheet I'd sent him because he couldn't see when the calls were made. I explained that each worksheet in the spreadsheet had a name and the name indicated the applicable month. Two minutes later, he arrived at my desk saying that he still couldn't make any sense of the spreadsheet because there were no dates in the worksheets. I opened my copy and showed him that the dates and times were in column A. He then tried to tell me that I had sent him the wrong file because his column A just had "stars" in it! Oh boy -- was his face red when I showed him how to expand the column! Makes you think, huh?!

Certainly makes you think, yes. Just not the way that the author intended.

Alan Cooper noted in his excellent book "The Inmates Are Running The Asylum" that the main difference between computer nerds and other people is not that the former can better handle complexity. They can, but that's not the main difference, which is that the former can better handle meaningless and arbitrary complexity. Computer geeks, especially those who have skills for tech support and system administration but who could never get past even the simplest beginner courses in computer science and thus could never work as programmers and system designers, consider it a great source of personal pride that they are able and motivated to learn meaningless and illogical rules describing how a black box is used. They think that their supreme ability of learning illogical rules proves that they are somehow "logical".

Let's look at the next story:

A guy rings up and says that he has just received his new update on four 3.5 inch floppy disks and he followed the instructions supplied with the update to the letter. He had a problem with the machine reading the second disk, just would not accept it. After a few probing questions, a site visit was required, so I attended the next day and was amazed by what I saw. Yes, the guy obviously had a problem reading the second disk after following the installation instructions. Installation Instructions:

1. Insert disk 1.
2. Run setup, click Ok when asked.
3. When asked, insert disk 2.

What I found was that he had not removed the first disk and had actually managed to get both disks into the floppy drive AT THE SAME TIME. Ooops.

What a stupid user! After all, all real-world storage devices work on the principle that if you put something in, you have to take it out before you can put something else in it, even though they would both fit at the same time! Of course the user should be able to logically deduce that he must take the first disk out before inserting the second one, even though he wasn't told to do so!

Any sane designer would have designed the disk drive so that it is physically impossible to put two disks in at the same time, but the very fact that the user was able to do so proves that this designer didn't bother to understand the logical idea that if the user is not supposed to something with the device, the device must be built so that doing so is physically impossible. I am sure that the designers of the floppy drive took great pride of how "logical" they are.

And Jesus Christ, just look at this:

Several years ago, our organisation finally got a T1 connection, so everyone suddenly had access to the Internet. The firewall with content filtering software was installed, but we were still playing around with the filtering settings.

Lots of our workers were complete newbies, so I had to teach a class on using browsers and e-mail clients. I had a mixed class of men and women, most of them completely new to computers. One of the guys was a very religious man, and everyone there was well aware of that.

At one point, I asked everyone in the class to enter www.yahoo.com in the URL box. After a moment, I heard a gasp, followed by everyone in the room busting out in laughter. Seems my religious friend didn't know how to spell "Yahoo" and had instead entered "Yuho." To his shock, and in front of a room full of witnesses, he was immediately transported to a raunchy porn site! The poor guy will never live it down!

Of course, the original design flaw here is the English language itself, since in English there is no other connection between spelling and pronunciation than historical conventions. The idea that all users must be able to type complex web addresses simply by hearing them... well, I guess the users just aren't that logical.

I know I would enjoy watching a scenario where a typical computer nerd was dying and his only possibility of staying alive depended on being able to instruct an average computer user to do some task that nerds love to impose on other people, perhaps download and install a patch for some software program (which would include editing some cryptic configuration files, of course), so that all instruction is given over a telephone without seeing what is going on. Or perhaps every car mechanic, lawyer, plumber or tailor could always put the computer nerds through the same hell that they love to impose on computer users. That certainly wouldn't be hard at all. Even the fattest nerd might finally get the point if he lost his home to the bank or if his home was flooded because he didn't know that some word doesn't have its commonsense everyday meaning. But since this is not likely to happen, it would be a great idea to make usability studies a compulsory subject in every school related to computers, so that each student would have to spend countless hours observing real users.

Every single "stupid users" horror story that I have ever read has only made it clear for me how stinkingly horribly bad computer usability has been and still is. Everybody, go see for yourself in the page "Computer Stupidities". These stories, in which you can pretty much always read between the lines what really happened and how the computer nerd spiced up the story so that he would find it even funnier, make it painfully and undeniably clear how absolutely wrong computers have been designed, how wrong all metaphors are, how alien the workings of the computer are, how everything is simply wrong.

Go on, go read through these stories. Try to find even one story where the user can reasonably considered to be somehow at fault or stupid. For any normal person, this should be a real challenge and finding such a story should take quite a while. Anybody who thinks that this task is easy since the majority of these stories describe stupid users, that is, people who behave stupidly considering what knowledge they can assumed to have and what the common sense would tell them to think and do in equivalent situations in other walks of life, I have only one thing to say: not only do you have a problem, you are the very problem. There is no other industry in the world that is as completely deranged and deluded about its customers as the computer industry.

Few voices of sanity such as Cooper and Tog try to make things better, but nerds just don't listen to them. And just think about it. When I, Ilkka Kokkarinen, of all people in the world, has to explain to some other group of people empathy and need of better understanding what real people are like, isn't that group pretty much by definition seriously fucked up?

6 comments

I'm always very impressed of the old ECT machine we are using (a machine that delivers electric shocks used in psychiatric conditions). Since it it used by medical doctors it must be of utmost simplicity and 100% foolproof. It never needs to be disassembled. If it however for some unknown reason must be reassembled, that can be done in one and only one way, the right one. The parts don't fit in any other way. There is only one way to use it, the right one. It can not be used in any other way however hard you try.
Now we have a new machine with marked improvements that e.g. include a possibility to make significant (but still not dangerous) errors and mistakes and I'm waiting eagerly for some exciting and adventurous moments in this hitherto most dull and uneventful routine of ours.

You know, I always thought that ECT was inhuman.

However, my my grandmother was given ECT for depression. The bitch deserved it for what she did to my mother. Just imagine rejecting your own daughter just because she got pregnant out of wedlock.

ECT is a safe and rapid, often curative treatment that is often life saving in some situations. If I should choose _some_ psychiatric treatment for myself I would without slightest hesitation choose ECT.

I disagree with the main point of this posting. Computers are complex machines and as such using them require some sort of basic knowledge. Every other gadget in the world (including the simplest household appliances can and will be used in a wrong way, but only with computers the problem is "usability" and "evil tech support".

If I am ironing my shirts and ruin them, should I call the manufacturer or my mother and whine about the usability problems with the iron? If I am driving a car and drive it to a tree while adjusting my seat while driving, should I be compensated by the manufacturer? Of course not. There just are things you have to know to be able to do certain things and computers are no different. In many/most countries you have to take an expensive and long course to be allowed to drive a car (a task that is much more simple than using a PC proficiently) and still people screw up. How come everyone could buy a computer by some magic be able to operate it?

Computers are complex machines and as such using them require some sort of basic knowledge.

They do, but that doesn't make the problem of illogical and badly designed user interfaces and misleading metaphors to go away.

If I am driving a car and drive it to a tree while adjusting my seat while driving, should I be compensated by the manufacturer? Of course not.

If you drive your car into a tree because your car occasionally tends to suddenly veer right on four-lane roards unless you keep the radio on and tuned to a certain channel, should you be compensated by the manufacturer? Of course. No matter how the propeller beanie heads try to explain that there is some deep internal reason that you must understand why your car requires this, and how logical and inherent this requirement is.

In many/most countries you have to take an expensive and long course to be allowed to drive a car (a task that is much more simple than using a PC proficiently) and still people screw up.

Cars are inherently dangerous due to the basic laws of Newtonian physics, but the same does not hold for computers and other information processing devices. The very fact that it is even possible to "screw up" a PC so that this causes actual damage is perhaps itself the best evidence how badly designed personal computers still are.

To get started, I recommend the site "Bughouse" that lists computer design flaws that almost any experienced computer user takes for granted and probably even imagines that they are inherent features of all possible computers. But they are not: they are serious design flaws and errors. The page "Computer Stupidities" shows had bad and misleading the user interface metaphors are.

Yes, *some* computer software is badly designed. Some users are too.

However, communication between two cultures is not enhanced by arrogance and stupidity.

Do you have any idea how offensive this kind of behaviour is? Have you ever worked for a helpdesk? Why attack people who are not responsible for the design of the software in question? Oh, no matter, all geeks are responsible for all bad software.

As a geek, I'm different. My whole life I have been bullied because of this. Because of the inability of other people to understand me. And I don't always understand them either, but at least I try.

If I work hard the whole day to be of service, and if a user tries politely to explain to me why he doesn't understand something, fine. Understanding other modes of thinking is a challenge.

However, if that same user chews me out for not being as illogical as him, I will not have much patience with him. I've had it with this cultural intolerance. I will not be held in contempt for being different.

This is not about the faults of software design or geeks. I know both the software industry and I still have much to learn. This is about treating aliens with respect. I have *never* said to a user that he is stupid. I have *often* been blamed by people like you for being, I don't know, unworthy or something. Actually most users are quite understanding and forgiving, except for a minority of bigots like you.

What exactly *is* the difference between "geekism" and racism anyway? Both groups are not very mentally flexible and have a problem with diversity.

With regard to your examples: why is it a bug for a column in a spreadsheet to be able to be resized? That user just didn't have the proper training, what the hell can I as a geek do about that? That's the responsibility of the manager.

As for the double floppy: that just was not very smart of that user, it does take some effort to pull that off. People make these kind of mistakes when they feel uncertain, the culture gap again.

As for the last example, it's just a funny story, so what?

From your link:

Customer: "Right! I demand satisfaction!"
Tech Support: "I see. Well, I'm here to try and help you. What kind of problem are you having?"
Customer: "It's not my problem! The 'commuter' I bought six weeks ago just won't work! I can't do a damned thing with it!"
Tech Support: "I see. Do you mean it won't even switch on, or is it something else?"
Customer: "Don't try to sandbag me! I know my rights!"
Tech Support: "Sir, could you explain the problem you are having so I can better help you with it?"
Customer: "I've called them all, AOL, Nildram, Tiscali, and none of them are any good."
Tech Support: "Ok, so are you saying that you're having problems getting on-line?"
Customer: "Look, it doesn't work! I want satisfaction!"
Tech Support: "Ok, well I need to ask you some questions to help you with the problem."
Customer: "Fine, but I doubt you're going to fix it."
Tech Support: "Is your modem installed and plugged into the phone line?"
Customer: "How would I know if it's plugged in?"
Tech Support: (describes how the back of the machine looks and where the modem is)
Customer: "Yes, that's just how mine looks, and it doesn't work, so just accept that it's broken!"
Tech Support: "Which cable did you connect the modem to the phone line with, sir?"
Customer: "I have to wire the stupid thing in?"

This is exactly what I mean: arrogance and stupidity. He could just have asked how this thing worked.

People like you have significantly contributed to my depression. I do not understand your aggression and intolerance, and believe me I've tried to understand it. At first I thought it was me. It wasn't. It's you, or rather, the way you communicate.

As for trying to understand computer programs: it helps if you recognize that there are many more valid modes of thinking than just your own. Why are *you* so important. Do you also impose your values on non-silicon cultures?

If you don't like computers, don't use them. If you don't like cats don't take a cat. Don't try to force it to change into a dog.

I have hesitated for a long time whether I should ever confront people like you with the effect they have on other people. You'll probably just blow your top, but I thought it was important for one time to show *you* that you are not that popular either on the other side (though the other side has no right to exist of course).

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