Why do people do this? (Computer related)

[NinjaChick]

Example 1: I'm at work this morning. I'm checking in books or something, one of the librarians is at her computer. This person is fairly smart but not particularly tech savvy. She asks me if I know how to make the text on a webpage larger. I say that I think there should be an option under View, or you should be able to change the default in the options panel. She, without attempting, asks again how and I have to show her how to do so.

Example 2: A couple days ago my mother calls me. She asks me how to do something (sorting cells in a table or something; I don't recall exactly) in Word. I tell her I think you can find the command to do that under Table but I'm not sure, so take a look there and if you can't find it, call me back later when I'll have the chance to boot into Windows (on my MacBook) and play around. Mom says instead she'll call my dad and ask him.

Both of these people are intelligent and well-educated. They use computer every day. It's not a lack of overall intelligence here.

It seems like there are two things feeding into this. One is a total lack of intuition ("How do I change the way I view a webpage? Maybe I should look under 'view'!), which is weird, because as I said, these are smart people. The second issue seems to be an even-more baffling apprehension of actually using a computer to do things without hand-holding. You are not going to break the internet by poking around IE menus, and as long as you save your Word document, it's not going to get sucked out of the computer. If you're really paranoid, just save another copy of your document and play around with that one, leaving the other file completely untouched.

What causes this behavior, or am I just imagining it all together?

[Markxxx]

Well making the text bigger doesn't always work on every webpage, depending on how it's set up. People think there is only one way to make a website.

But as the "computer guy" at work I understand the question. For instance, everytime an admin has to do a mail merge I have to walk them through it. I am like you do it ONCE a month at LEAST, you should know how to do it. But I don't mind, it's obvious they aren't comfortable with it.

People think computers are somehow mysterious and are afraid of them. On the flip side, I realize the MIS people want to scare the little guys so they don't go infecting their computers. And there is some validity.

For instance, our MIS head guy at a company I worked for told everyone that if you delete a file and empty your trash bin it's not really gone, you can still get it back. Well yeah it's POSSIBLE to do this, and 99% of the time someone has done this, I've recovered it, but once he said that everyone got careless and started emptying the trash.

So people feel if I try to make the text bigger and I screw it up I'll never get it back to normal. It's safer to ask so if something DOES go wrong, someone will know what I did and be able to help fix it.

[Hunter Hawk]

People develop mental schemata of how systems work. If they don't have enough expertise to have effectively developed appropriate mental models, they tend to be very unclear of how to approach problem-solving tasks. As Markxxx notes, a side effect of this is being reluctant to make changes because they'll be unclear on how to return to a known-good state.

[Sage Rat]

People are afraid that they will break something.

[Sunrazor]

I noticed both people you cite are female. Maybe we don't raise our little girls to be technologically confident, empowered women?

Just a thought.

[kunilou]

People are afraid that they will break something.

This.

I'm in my 50s. I've been using computers daily for 25 years (and I wasn't even an early adopter.) To this day, I have a nagging fear that if I try to tinker with something THE COMPUTER WILL BLOW UP, the hard drive will melt and I'll not only lose the computer but every piece of data I ever typed -- even if I typed it on a different computer and backed it up six different ways. I am also convinced that the hard copies I have in the file cabinet across the room will burst into flames.

[PopeJewish]

people who didn't grow up using a computer tend to be less willing to just go ahead and trying something on a computer. They're just less comfortable with the "well, this might fuck it up, but I can always go back to my previous save" sort of attitude. Basically, they're just not as used to to the demon-boxes as some of us are ;)

[seodoa]

I agree with PopeJewish. Most of these cases that I've seen in my brief stint in IT stemmed from the facts that people don't understand how computers work and they are not used to the idea of (almost) always being able to restore things to a previous state.

Of course, as Markxxx points out, sometimes people go to the other extreme and start trusting that ability too much. I've even been guilty of that a few times in my life.

[CairoCarol]

I have a tendency to do something like this to my husband (although I'm less passive than the people you describe - if I get a "try this" type of tip, I will follow it before asking for more help). My reason? He is absolutely brilliant when it comes to computers, and can fix just about any problem or figure out any command. If we're in our shared office and something is holding me up, 9 times out of 10 asking him for the answer will be faster than trying to figure it out myself.

[beowulff]

I was just discussing this with a client yesterday. People who didn't grow up with computers (I'm probably in the first generation which did, barely) often times don't really understand what they are doing. They have learned certain actions by rote: click here, type this, pull down this menu. They have never learned how computers or the Internet actually works. I likened it to cooking: there are some people who are perfectly capable of following a recipe, and making a decent meal, but when you watch the chefs on Iron Chef , they aren't following a cookbook - they know how to cook, and if something goes wrong, how to fix it.
I think it's actually a great tribute to modern software and OS design that so many people can actually be reasonably productive on a computer without ever having read a manual.

[drachillix]

I noticed both people you cite are female. Maybe we don't raise our little girls to be technologically confident, empowered women?

Just a thought.

I know 2 database people who I call/refer clients to with data migration/DB issues.

Both are women.

[Captain Carrot]

I noticed both people you cite are female. Maybe we don't raise our little girls to be technologically confident, empowered women?

Just a thought.

Naw, guys do the same thing.

[NinjaChick]

I noticed both people you cite are female. Maybe we don't raise our little girls to be technologically confident, empowered women?

Just a thought.
I don't think it's a gender thing. My mom was a marine scientist back when women by and large didn't go into science or were just beginning to be accepted. The other person is...well...neither un-confident nor particularly feminine, so I don't think that's it.
I was just discussing this with a client yesterday. People who didn't grow up with computers (I'm probably in the first generation which did, barely) often times don't really understand what they are doing. They have learned certain actions by rote: click here, type this, pull down this menu. They have never learned how computers or the Internet actually works. I likened it to cooking: there are some people who are perfectly capable of following a recipe, and making a decent meal, but when you watch the chefs on Iron Chef , they aren't following a cookbook - they know how to cook, and if something goes wrong, how to fix it.
I think it's actually a great tribute to modern software and OS design that so many people can actually be reasonably productive on a computer without ever having read a manual.
The cooking example actually helps put this in perspective a lot, I think, because thinking about it, I'm to cooking as my mother is to computers. I grew up with computers (we got a desktop when I was four or five), but not cooking. If I'm not sure how to do something on a computer, I still know the basics like the back of my hand, so I'm comfortable fiddling around. Cooking scares me though, and fairly recently I had to call my mother and ask what exactly it meant to cook veggies until they were tender. I know what tender means, but in that context I just couldn't put it together.

Though in my defense, there is a legitimate chance that cooking vegetables improperly could result in fiery death, whereas as long as your computer is still firmly in it's case and you're not poking it, you're not going to set it on fire.

I guess it's still strange to me because from my perspective, having been born in 1986 and having a tech geek for a father, rudimentary computer skills weren't really consciously learned any more than writing with pencil and paper.

And WRT using manuals and such, my mom was aghast when I bought a Mac last year and did not buy an OS X guide or sign up to take a class. My dad, who is a geek and engineer and computer-ish guy by trade, heard us talking about it and wondered out loud why you would buy a book or even read the guide that came with before you broke something. Somewhere, there is a happy medium.

[Merneith]

I've noticed that with most of the people I've ended up helping, the answer is often right on the page. If they would read the actual text in the error box, or just read through the menu choices, or read the dialog that just opened up, they'd know what to do.

I think there's a sort of gap where people just accept that they don't know what they're doing and then it doesn't even occur to them that they could figure it out just by paying attention. They just assume they won't understand it so they don't bother reading. It's kind of a scary gap that I hope I don't fall into one day.

One of the changes I noticed first between Vista and XP is that in Vista the dialogs for saving or moving files tend to be much larger and more verbose. Where before you might see a dialog with three buttons
-SAVE- -SAVE AS A COPY- -CANCEL-

now in Vista you get a big screen that explains in verbose language what your choices are. It does exactly what the old dialogs do but's pretty and bright and no longer looks like a win95 relic. I've often wondered who made the change and what they're internal testing looks like. My (limited) experience suggests that the problem is people won't read whether its verbose or terse. I'd like to see what MS's testing on the subject shows.

[Kaio]

I noticed both people you cite are female. Maybe we don't raise our little girls to be technologically confident, empowered women?

Just a thought.

Nah. My father was the king of learned helplessness when it came to computers. Typical conversations went like this:

dad: How do you do X on the computer?
me: Go to the File menu--
dad: --I can't do that! File menu? Just show me.
me: *sits down and opens File menu* The File menu is up here and then you go--
dad: I can't do that! You do it! Just make it work.
me: :rolleyes:

Seriously, he wouldn't even try to learn what I was teaching him. Drove me nuts.

[elfkin477]

I noticed both people you cite are female. Maybe we don't raise our little girls to be technologically confident, empowered women?

Just a thought. I could be wrong, but I'm willing to bet NinjaChick's Mom was an adult before the PC became a common place thing. I'm "good with computers" according to my older coworkers, too, and given they're reasonably intelligent I assume I'm more comfortable with computers since I was in first grade when I first started using one and they didn't grow up with them.

[kittenblue]

I have this exact problem. It isn't intuitive to me. There doesn't seem to be a logical progression of steps. The titles of some of the actions don't fit with what I'm trying to do. And sometimes, you can't tell if what you have done is working, thinking about working, might work next week or after lunch, or wasn't possible in the first place. How many times have I sat there, letting the little bar that says "loading attachment" keep spinning round and round like a barber pole, and absolutely no attachment is loading, or ever will? And I'm considered the expert on the computers at my workplace, so you can imagine what the other two women are going through, only one of whom spends anytime on a computer at home.

I know how to do what I know how to do, and if I don't do it everyday, and have the steps written down, I may forget what to do. I work on what is basically a Windows-based word processing program that runs a piece of machinery. At my store location, the screen is just fine. But when I work on it at another store, the command buttons/task bars/function buttons are too small, and I can't seem to make them bigger. I can make OTHER things bigger, but not the stuff i need. I would like to call tech support for help, but I'm a bit embarrassed because I don't know what the darn things are called! Now Kelly and Abby in tech support are very sweet to me, but twice now I have called with problems they have never seen before (in over 700 stores) and can't figure out how to fix. I think they feel I have too much time on my hands, when I should be selling stuff!

[Bolt the Nut]

Beowulff - That is a great analogy. Good post.

[gladtobeblazed]

In some programs you can move or even close the toolbars and menus. I've done this a few times, sometimes I wasn't even sure what toolbar I closed until months later when I needed to use it, but couldn't find it.

[brujaja]

Heh. I was fortunate enough to have two experiences which made me the Fearless Tamperer that I am today:

1. My first-ever computer had a 500 MB hard drive (ooooh!) and a 14.4 modem. In very short order, my fancy art program that I got for Christmas conflicted with my stoneage antivirus program, and I got a ridiculously persistent BSOD.
No problem, I thought, I have 6 months of free tech support.
First thing the guy did was have me open the case, & short out the CMOS battery!
That didn't work. Neither did anything else. I spent the next 3 days just trying all kinds of stuff, because I had just got the damn thing, and I wanted to play with it!
Finally, I put in the floppy disk that came with the PC so you could register it. I had already registered my computer, but I just wanted to see something on the screen besides "FATAL ERROR."
Fixed it right up. Yep.

2. I have gotten a master boot virus that suddenly & unexpectedly wiped everything irretrievably off my HD. I've lost the contents of a few hard drives to various disasters. After it happens enough times, it's just not so scary. Plus, by then, you've had lots of practice re-installing your OS.



P.S. never, ever double-click on a file with the extension ".reg". Ever.

[Lakai]

I became fearless with computers after I dealt with the following computer problems:

1) Blue screen of death.
2) Random shutdowns.
3) Black screen with the message "missing file ____".
4) No internet.
5) Google results kept taking me to a porno page.

Once you know what to do for each of these, testing every option in a new application isn't so scary. It's also amazing how many different ways you can lose an internet connection, and how focused you get when you don't have one.

However, my computer at work ran on Windows 98. If that thing broke down that meant we might lose our sale records (at least for the day, which is still bad.) Knowing that Windows 98 just crashes whenever it feels like it, I didn't take many chances on that one. If a restart or alt+ctrl+del did not work we would call the computer guy.

[imfloating]

Nah. My father was the king of learned helplessness when it came to computers. Typical conversations went like this:

dad: How do you do X on the computer?
me: Go to the File menu--
dad: --I can't do that! File menu? Just show me.
me: *sits down and opens File menu* The File menu is up here and then you go--
dad: I can't do that! You do it! Just make it work.
me: :rolleyes:

Seriously, he wouldn't even try to learn what I was teaching him. Drove me nuts.

I'm probably older than dad, the king of learned helplessness, as you call him. I'm not interested in every little nuance of this damn computer. The only things I know how to do are Flight Simulator and photo shop. This computer might look to him like a two wheeler looked to you when YOU were the king of learned helplessness.

[Kaio]

I'm probably older than dad, the king of learned helplessness, as you call him. I'm not interested in every little nuance of this damn computer. The only things I know how to do are Flight Simulator and photo shop. This computer might look to him like a two wheeler looked to you when YOU were the king of learned helplessness.

Yeah, I don't see why you feel that taking pot shots at me are necessary.

If it helps, the aforementioned king of learned helplessness was like this for years. We got a computer at home when I started high school or thereabouts, he would still do this all the way up til I left for college. He also used a computer at work (so it wasn't an entirely foreign object even when our home computer was new), and I have to think if he's asking me how to do something on the computer, it's something he actually wants to do on the computer; and if he's asking to be taught, it would be to his benefit to actually attempt to learn. My mom, on the other hand, would actually listen and attempt to learn what you were trying to explain. And usually would learn, simply by virtue of the fact that she tried.

On the other hand, I learned how to ride a two-wheeler without any help from my dad (he couldn't be bothered), and it didn't take me four years (or even two months) to do so. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that I developed learned helplessness -- you do know what it means (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness) right? That it's different from real helplessness, or simply not having learned a skill yet?

[RealityChuck]

I was always fearless with computers (I'm over 50, BTW). I'd just try things and see what happened. Never had a problem.

But I know that people worry they might break a computer. I once taught a class in computer graphics and the first thing I told them was "treat your computer like you do your TV set. If what you do would break your TV, then it will break your computer. If what you do wouldn't break your TV, it won't break your computer." I also pointed out that no one ever broke a TV by pressing the wrong button on the remote.

It helped them a lot.

[Chimera]

As a tech support guy, I'm a lot less bothered by very simple how-to questions (they make for an easy day) and very much more bothered by;

"I've had this computer for five years, I'm not under warranty or paying for support, I have my whole life poured into it, I've never backed up or copied off a single thing and it just crashed. GET IT BACK FOR ME!!! NOW!!! I don't care if I'm not entitled to support! It's all your fault! My life is ruined! Waaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!"

The worst of those were the female college students during finals week. :smack:

[Shodan]

But I know that people worry they might break a computer. I once taught a class in computer graphics and the first thing I told them was "treat your computer like you do your TV set. If what you do would break your TV, then it will break your computer. If what you do wouldn't break your TV, it won't break your computer." I also pointed out that no one ever broke a TV by pressing the wrong button on the remote.

It helped them a lot.Unfortunately, in general, that's not true. When was the last time your TV set got a virus that messed up the registry?

I think much of the problem is that people, myself included, don't know how to ask the question.

"I want to make the text bigger." I go to Firefox Help and type in "make text bigger".

0 search results for "make text bigger "
No pages matched the search criteria

Can't find what you're looking for? Ask a support question instead!
So I go to "Ask a support question" and type "make text bigger".

I get exactly the same screen.

I get this with my dad all the time. He is really trying to learn, but he doesn't know where to start.

Regards,
Shodan

[Hypno-Toad]

The learned helplessness comes close to the reason why some people are like this. They don't want you to teach them how to do it. They want you to do it. Therefore, they won't learn.

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.
Teach a man to fish, and now he has to work for his food.

[ivan astikov]

I'm quite fearless myself when it comes to tampering with the software side, but I don't like opening up the innards of my laptop. I always end up with extra screws!

In the interest of learning something else while I'm in here, could anyone tell me where the error messages from BSOD's are kept within the hard drive? Also is there a folder that stores all your firefox bookmarks - apart from the ones you create within the program?

[Larry Mudd]

The learned helplessness comes close to the reason why some people are like this. They don't want you to teach them how to do it. They want you to do it. Therefore, they won't learn.

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day.
Teach a man to fish, and now he has to work for his food.I tend to provide options for both personality types. Here's a recent example. (We moved our database to a new server, breaking people's shortcuts.)

From: Ann *****
Sent: February-11-09 12:11 AM
To: Larry ****
Subject: yardi

Hi Larry,

My Yardi doesn’t work anymore.....help?
________________________________________

From: Larry ****
Sent: February-11-09 9:51 AM
To: Ann *****
Subject: RE: yardi

Hi, Ann -

You have two options for fixing this, pick whichever one works better for you:

A:

• Right-click the short-cut you use to get to Yardi, and select “properties.”
• Change the URL to http://[SERVER]/Voyager/Pages/Login.aspx
• Click “Apply”
• Click “OK”

B:

• When you get into the office and log in, call the monkey to come downstairs. He doesn’t mind.

________________________________________

From: Ann *****
Sent: February-11-09 10:08 AM
To: Larry ****
Subject: RE: yardi

I think I need the monkey...I am completely computer illiterate.

Ann *****
Some people like to be as self-reliant as possible, and other people have just decided that they're better off not touching anything. Anyone could follow the instructions above, but some people are always going to prefer to let someone else do it.

[Chimera]

Eh, the other day I had a retired military officer attempting to order me to violate federal laws and company policies because while she claimed to have worked with computers in the military, she clearly didn't know how to actually use them. She only knew how to very loudly and angrily order other people to use them.

She was trying to access government sites to get at her pension and retirement information. At the user prompt, she was typing in her (free public company) e-mail address and e-mail password. (:p) When I asked her if she had her accounts set up on the government servers, she screamed at me that she didn't care what the problem was, she wanted me to fix it. She got quite upset when I stated that I could not set up accounts on *federal government* computers for her.

Since I'm not allowed to speak my mind to such people like I could with previous tech support jobs, I just let her get upset at me and hang up. Bye bye!

I'm certain that this person is going to enjoy the real world a whole lot if she's not capable of doing anything herself and just knows how to scream at others to make it happen. And on the other end, I'm quite certain that our military is better off having one less of these jackasses in it's officer ranks.

[GusNSpot]

I like to know how to do stuff and find 16 different ways to make the computer do them.

But .........

I'm old, I forget, things don't go wrong regularly, I forget how I fixed them cause I don't practice fixing them, I know I used to know how to fix that because I did it before, so now I'm pissed at myself and start doing things without thinking about it and then it is gone for good, or lets all the smoke out and then I have to buy new things with the smoke still inside and I have lost the stuff I want inside them and then I go pound my head against the wall. This cause blood to flow and make a mess on the floor and wall.

Computers are bad for my health,,, :(

[AHunter3]

I think I learned the computer at the absolute perfect time to become acquainted with computers.

Just a few years prior, doing stuff on the computer meant writing your own code in fortran and making up a deck of punch cards, and all that just to do something simple like sort an array of information and print it. Just a few years later and one's operating system and commercial program files were these sprawlingly complex things, folders inside of folders and batches of files with arcane names and shared libraries and preferences and whatnot.

But for this short little golden period, the Macintosh operating system consisted of two and only two necessary files, which could be anywhere as long as they were "next to each other", plus about 4 other less-critical files that would normally also be in the System Folder; any program (application) would be a single file unto itself and could be anywhere at all also. Without taking any course or reading any instructional materials, just from trial and error, anyone with even a fragment of curiosity could quickly find how to create a new bootable disk, how to put a copy of an application on a disk, even things like moving a font from one copy of the operating system to another. We all carried our entire computing environments in our shirt pockets back then — it was the heyday of the 800K floppy disk. I'm afraid most of us were software pirates, as the operating system itself was free and the apps that came with it as well, and the notion that software existed for which the rules were otherwise was a totally foreign concept to us.

When hard disks came onto the scene in a big way, it was easy to transfer our knowledge to the environment characterized by vastly more storage space.


I admit I don't know how it is that others who did their term papers on the same 512Ke's using the same MacWrite word processing software did not poke around and learn that if "LaserWriter" had been moved out of the System Folder that would explain why you could not print, or that if you save your term paper to the hard disk and eject the floppy and leave, your term paper is being left behind on the computer.

I retain an attitude towards software: if I have to actually crack open a manual to even get started, if I can't figure out most of it just by clicking around, it's probably a piece of crap anyhow. Good sofware should be self-explanatory.

[Anne Neville]

I actually learned how to zoom in and out on pages in Firefox by putting a book in front of my computer. One of the corners was resting on the Control key. Then I tried to use the mouse wheel to move up and down in a web page, as I normally do, and- why isn't it scrolling, and why does the text keep getting bigger and smaller?

I'm in my 50s. I've been using computers daily for 25 years (and I wasn't even an early adopter.) To this day, I have a nagging fear that if I try to tinker with something THE COMPUTER WILL BLOW UP, the hard drive will melt and I'll not only lose the computer but every piece of data I ever typed -- even if I typed it on a different computer and backed it up six different ways. I am also convinced that the hard copies I have in the file cabinet across the room will burst into flames.

Mom? I didn't know you were a Doper. And why are you lying about your age?

My mom also believed that any email that said it came from my email address could not possibly have a virus in it, because I had a security clearance.

[TroubleAgain]

I put it down to laziness. "Hmmm, I want to do thing A. I can either take 10 minutes reading help pages to figure it out, or I can ask someone who already knows."

[beowulff]

I put it down to laziness. "Hmmm, I want to do thing A. I can either take 10 minutes reading help pages to figure it out, or I can ask someone who already knows."

There is some truth to that...
After the millionth time of answering some inane computer question for a friend of mine, I put down the phone, turned to a mutual friend and said "He'll pick up the phone before he picks up his brain."

[imfloating]

Yeah, I don't see why you feel that taking pot shots at me are necessary.

If it helps, the aforementioned king of learned helplessness was like this for years. We got a computer at home when I started high school or thereabouts, he would still do this all the way up til I left for college. He also used a computer at work (so it wasn't an entirely foreign object even when our home computer was new), and I have to think if he's asking me how to do something on the computer, it's something he actually wants to do on the computer; and if he's asking to be taught, it would be to his benefit to actually attempt to learn. My mom, on the other hand, would actually listen and attempt to learn what you were trying to explain. And usually would learn, simply by virtue of the fact that she tried.

On the other hand, I learned how to ride a two-wheeler without any help from my dad (he couldn't be bothered), and it didn't take me four years (or even two months) to do so. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that I developed learned helplessness -- you do know what it means (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness) right? That it's different from real helplessness, or simply not having learned a skill yet?

Didn't mean to take a pot shot. It just seemed like you weren't showing any patience, but now I see how you could lose it.

[Zsofia]

I actually learned how to zoom in and out on pages in Firefox by putting a book in front of my computer. One of the corners was resting on the Control key. Then I tried to use the mouse wheel to move up and down in a web page, as I normally do, and- why isn't it scrolling, and why does the text keep getting bigger and smaller?




HOLY CRAP! That's awesome!

[Shodan]

Don't keep us in suspense - what book was it?

Regards,
Shodan

[iamthewalrus(:3=]

I think much of the problem is that people, myself included, don't know how to ask the question.

"I want to make the text bigger." I go to Firefox Help and type in "make text bigger".

So I go to "Ask a support question" and type "make text bigger".

I get exactly the same screen.

I get this with my dad all the time. He is really trying to learn, but he doesn't know where to start. This is a really good point about the failings of computers trying to tell humans how to use them. You have to know what to ask. One thing you could suggest to your Dad is to think about searching for the noun he wants to interact with rather than the desired outcome or action he wants to take. Part of the reason for this is simply that there are so many verbs that mean the same sort of thing, and a search is generally only going to match if you guessed the same word that the guy writing the documentation used.

For example, you could write his question as "enlargen text", "make text bigger", "magnify text", "increase text size", etc. On an even broader scale, he could describe the problem as "can't read text", "words too small", etc. The odds that you'll hit useful help information when there are so many ways to describe the problem are low.

But if you think about the noun involved, it's pretty much necessarily going to be either "text size" or "font size" Both of those search phrases, by the way, produce results in Firefox's help search that will get you where you want to go.

Now, it would be nice if help were better about this, but note that it's not limited to automated help. Anyone who's worked in tech support can tell you stories about how someone calls in with the stated problem of "my email won't work", and the resolution ends up being something like the computer's not plugged in. People tend to be goal-driven, so we focus on what we want to do, rather than what's actually keeping us from doing it. But the way to troubleshoot something is to figure out what's standing in the way and resolve that. So the natural human perspective is somewhat at odds with efficient problem solving.

That's why one of the first things that a (good) tech will do is get you out of the (very human) mode of thinking about the desired outcome, and ask you specific questions about what you did ("when you say you tried to send email, do you mean that you clicked on the Send Email button?") or what you see ("Describe what's on the screen right now"). There are just too many ways that things can go wrong, so narrowing down to a very specific issue will make both automated and human tech support work better.

[SmartAleq]

I think much of the problem is that people, myself included, don't know how to ask the question.

"I want to make the text bigger." I go to Firefox Help and type in "make text bigger".

So I go to "Ask a support question" and type "make text bigger".

I get exactly the same screen.

I get this with my dad all the time. He is really trying to learn, but he doesn't know where to start.


Now, if instead of going to Firefox Help you just go straight to Google and type in "firefox make text larger" you get as the first result this very helpful page (http://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/win/seeing/text/browser/sub_3.shtml). Not to mention you can set Google preferences to suggest search terms for you--if you have that enabled and start typing the search string above you'll have it as an option when you've typed as far as "firefox mak." I'm at a loss how anybody can remain totally clueless with a resource like Google just a click away.

My husband does tech support from home and after listening to his calls I've lost all hope for mankind, technologically speaking. There's a whole huge world of abysmal and wilfull ignorance out there just bubbling away. The fact that a substantial percentage of computer users do not know and apparently will not learn that an address bar is NOT the same thing as a search bar and will NOT give identical results if you type something in there is a strong indication that we're all gonna be headed toward a technological apocalypse sometime soon. Age does not appear to be a common factor in this sort of ignorance--he's had 85 year olds who were infinitely more savvy than those in their '20s and '30s.

[CookingWithGas]

I have a different theory than most. I think this has absolutely nothing to do with computers. In the days before computers, some people would never attempt to open their car hood, take the back off a radio, or remove the cover from a light switch.

Some people have an insatiable need to understand how things work, and some people just want the damn things to work. This does not necessarily correlate to intelligence or sex but computer programmers and mechanical engineers tend to love to continue to learn about things and know how they work. Part of that learning is poking around to figure it out. Other people get no sense of accomplishment from that and see it as a waste of time.

[Anne Neville]

I have a different theory than most. I think this has absolutely nothing to do with computers. In the days before computers, some people would never attempt to open their car hood, take the back off a radio, or remove the cover from a light switch.

Some people have an insatiable need to understand how things work, and some people just want the damn things to work.

I think this is an oversimplification. It's entirely possible to be very interested in how some things work, but not other things. I've certainly known astronomers who were very interested in figuring out the universe, but when it came time to use their computers to help them do that, they wanted them to Just Work.

[Rigamarole]

Sounds like it was more an issue of the way you phrased your responses with a lack of confidence than anything on their end. They wanted a definite answer. You answered with "I think X, but I'm not sure." which just isn't as satisfying.

[AHunter3]

Don't keep us in suspense - what book was it?

Regards,
Shodan

I suppose it would be too much to hope for that it would have been Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland?

[NinjaChick]

Sounds like it was more an issue of the way you phrased your responses with a lack of confidence than anything on their end. They wanted a definite answer. You answered with "I think X, but I'm not sure." which just isn't as satisfying.
But again, there's that weird need for "I must know beyond any possible doubt that this will work perfectly, or else I won't try it," which I just don't understand. Clearly, if you're asking someone how to do something you think they might know, and neither my boss nor my mother has any reason to assume I'd intentionally mislead them, so why not try what I suggest trying?

[Hodge]

I suppose it would be too much to hope for that it would have been Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland?I've often thought that modern computer keyboards needed "DRINK ME" and "EAT ME" keys. I imagine the latter would be especially useful.

[Lynn Bodoni]

Now, it would be nice if help were better about this, but note that it's not limited to automated help. Anyone who's worked in tech support can tell you stories about how someone calls in with the stated problem of "my email won't work", and the resolution ends up being something like the computer's not plugged in. People tend to be goal-driven, so we focus on what we want to do, rather than what's actually keeping us from doing it. But the way to troubleshoot something is to figure out what's standing in the way and resolve that. So the natural human perspective is somewhat at odds with efficient problem solving. Another part of the problem is jargon. Words and phrases in Computerese don't necessarily mean the same thing as they do in non Computerese.

[Superfluous Parentheses]

I read an article the other day about how some people seem to have a talent for programming and others don't. The main difference between the people who can handle programming and those who can't is that the people who can build consistent models of how systems work - even if their model isn't correct. The people who can't use different models for each problem.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/12/comfort-with-meaning.html

[lizardling]

Another part of the problem is jargon. Words and phrases in Computerese don't necessarily mean the same thing as they do in non Computerese.

...And even then, there's different dialects of Computerese and then we have to bash out what a term might mean in a given dialect and tell the user that "Fnord" doesn't mean what you think it means if you're doing XYZ.

Yes, our heads hurt too. :p

This jargon also makes it harder to troubleshoot, especially if the user is someone who's resistant to picking up the vocabulary even if we've troubleshot the exact same problem many times before. You might think it sounds cute to say "the computer went 'weh?'," but to me it just raises my blood pressure because I know that is not going to be a favorable sign for troubleshooting.

[Lynn Bodoni]

Heh. Usually, my calls to Tech Support start off with "I can't get online. I've already rebooted my computer and unplugged and replugged in my modem (X number) times." Then we go on from there. Please note that I don't say that the internet isn't working.

My main problem with the jargon is that it changes more rapidly than I can memorize it. However, it is a tiny consolation to know that the techs' heads hurt too. Except when the tech in question is my daughter. As to why I don't call HER up...she's tech support for a kind of commercial software, and I'm not a government agency, and that's who uses the software she supports.

I think that this is the place where I whine about not being able to copy a small image several times over onto a single page, so I can print it out on ONE PAGE, cut out the images, and paste the resulting "Professor Bodoni's Dried Frog Pills" emblem on various tins and jars full of green Jelly Belly beans. The emblem has an image in it, which is why I need to copy it in MSPaint. I've tried clicking on the buttons, I've tried reading the help index and articles, I've tried Googling for help. I know it can be done, because my daughter's done it with other images, but I don't remember how SHE did it.

[Lakai]

I read an article the other day about how some people seem to have a talent for programming and others don't. The main difference between the people who can handle programming and those who can't is that the people who can build consistent models of how systems work - even if their model isn't correct. The people who can't use different models for each problem.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/12/12/comfort-with-meaning.html

Is there an answer to that problem?

[Askance]

I think these compilliterates don't actually understand how anything they do works. They just have a canned series of actions that produce a certain outcome that they somehow learned. Anything that varies from that by a whisker spooks them. It doesn't matter if you show them how to do it with half the actions - that's different and not what they've learned.

The change from Windows 98 to ME spooked my father so much he's basically not used a computer since. There was this mental barrier that "things were different" and he just could not get past it. In his case this came with getting to a certain age where all mental flexibility just vanished (along with rational and critical thinking) within a couple of years.

[beowulff]

The change from Windows 98 to ME spooked my father so much he's basically not used a computer since.

Understandable.
ME terrified me!

[Napier]

I think it is somewhat reasonable to be afraid of breaking a computer by pushing the wrong button.

This is based on a somewhat loose interpretation of what it means to break something. But it is certainly possible to do enough harm that it takes days or weeks to fix, with just a single move.

I bumped the mouse on a Sun Sparcstation about 15 years ago when I was moving something on my desk, and accomplished a click-and-drag that moved a directory in one Explorer-like view into another directory that was a subdirectory of the first. And the directory I moved was my master project directory that contained all my data files for all my projects. The machine started furiously copying and nesting things, with thousands of files involved, and got them many layers deep most of which were alternating directory names. It was somewhat difficult to figure out how to interrupt the whole process (something about piping a process query to a grep command to a kill command), and it did take weeks to straighten things out.

When something seems to be going wrong on a computer, usually it's seconds or minutes to straighten it out, but there is no guarantee it will ever be fixable. An IT fellow who always seemed very capable, bright, and hardworking tried on-and-off to get my office PC to print to the network HP Laserjet printer two doors down the hall, for five years. Five years. I always had to print to the expensive dye sub printer in the next wing when I was printing out 70 page black and white documents. He never got it to work.

So, I think it depends on people's experiences.

It also depends on what they want to get involved in. Some people like to fix their own cars, some like to do their own taxes, some people even like doing drywall. Well, I've heard it happens, anyway.

There are many ways of being good at computers and being weak with them. Even somebody who, shipwrecked on a desert island with nothing but a tube of Z90's and a torn copy of K&R, could build a satellite internet uplink, might not be able to install Zone Alarm. I know I spent a couple of days trying to no avail, and I actually did design a simple Z80 computer.