hindsight/user experience

[Karl Hegbloom]

On Fri, 2005-04-08 at 14:56 -0400, Leif wrote:
> Karl Hegbloom
> So he's some sort of MCSIE? [1 Wrote: 
> >   The whole pseudo-philosophy of assuming
> > that the user doesn't need to know anything about how the computer
> > actually works is so totally bogus.  It's ultimately responsible for
> > your friend's troubles.  Computers are so ubiquitous these days that
> > this sort of thing should be becoming common knowledge!  Anyone with a
> > PC ought to possess a certain amount of foundation knowledge.
> 
> I must respectfully disagree. My mother does NOT need to know ANYTHING
> about how a computer works beyond how to switch it on, start a browser,
> write emails, and use messenger/skype. For her, if a computer could
> actually have hard buttons that when pressed started the 5 applications
> she will ever use, would be an improvement.

Ok, so suppose one of those 5 buttons doesn't work, and so now she has
no clue what could be wrong or how to fix it.  She reboots, reinstalls,
waves a rubber chicken, phones tech support and says what?

If she has no knowledge upon which to form a realist understanding of
what could be the matter, how will she report the bug?  (Oh, you can
report bugs?)

If she has some understanding of the system organization, and what
software actually is and at least a gross general understanding of how
it operates, her bug report will likely contain more useful information,
leading to a quicker bug fix.

Not everyone can afford to pay money for technical support.  And tech
support people should not have to continually answer the same silly
questions about things that really ought to be common knowledge.

I think most people have some understanding of how their automobile
works, for example.  They know it has "an engine" that "burns" gasoline.
They know the basics of how an internal combustion engine works, that it
has an electric motor to get it started, what the battery is, what a
radiator is and what it's for, how to check the oil, when to take it in
for a tuneup...  It's that level of understanding that I'm talking
about, not an advanced degree in computational psychology.