A friend shared a post from someone else that was talking about this article. I’ve quoted the text from that post below:

This is a 1996 guide on how to help someone use a computer. It’s strikingly resonant with ‘how to be a parent’, or really ‘how to help anyone with anything’. A nice example of “the universal within the particular”

  • Eager EagleEnglish
    55•1 year ago

    Don’t say “it’s in the manual”. (You knew that.)

    arch users sweating profusely

    • @protist@mander.xyzEnglish
      3•1 year ago

      Whenever they start to blame themselves, respond by blaming the computer. Then keep on blaming the computer, no matter how many times it takes, in a calm, authoritative tone of voice.

      Computer: Blame me harder, daddy

  • @anamethatisnt@lemmy.worldEnglish
    25•1 year ago

    Computers often present their users with textual messages, but the users often don’t read them.

    So many times I’ve just been a fancy TTS (Text to speech) assistant.
    End user: Sends MMS of error message.
    Me: Calls end user and reads the error message out loud.
    End user: Oh! Thanks! Problem solved.
    Me: No problem, have a good day.

    • JojoEnglish
      17•1 year ago

      The trick to make this stop is to be an expensive text-to-speech engine.

  • OtterOPEnglish
    20•1 year ago

    In particular, I think there are parts of this guide that are relevant to how we introduce new technologies to other people, be it privacy tools or the Fediverse.

    • @AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.netEnglish
      14•1 year ago

      I agree, this is great. I really liked:

      “Most user interfaces are terrible. When people make mistakes it’s usually the fault of the interface. You’ve forgotten how many ways you’ve learned to adapt to bad interfaces.”

      and

      "Whenever they start to blame themselves, respond by blaming the computer. Then keep on blaming the computer, no matter how many times it takes, in a calm, authoritative tone of voice. If you need to show off, show off your ability to criticize bad design. "

  • @tabular@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9•1 year ago

    I’m finding it difficult to help at work as I stopped using Windows years ago.

    The search function fails to find basic menus or programs, I’d have an easier time using Windows XP. I’m sure part of it is I’m forgetting things and not up to date with changes but when typing “printer” does not give a useful result either it’s as shit as I hear it is out of the box from M$ or it has been crippled by work’s OEM.

    • @frank@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      8•1 year ago

      I use VoidTools Everything for searching. It’s absolutely lightning fast and super powerful.

      The built in Windows search is such garbage

      • yeehawEnglish
        5•1 year ago

        That’s because it doesn’t do what we want. Who goes “download 7zip” in the start menu? People typically use it to find their installed software and by default (is it even able to change?) it searched the bloody internet. And it’s slow. Why?

        Mac and Linux I just get what I want in an instant. Windows is just a data collection engine for Microsoft these days.

        • @frank@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          2•1 year ago

          You can disable (today, anyway) the internet search, and it gets wildly more useful after that. I wonder if it’s trying to be two things: searching your computer like it should, and for the less computer literate it’s “help me”

    • OtterOPEnglish
      7•1 year ago

      I get very annoyed when I’m looking for something that should be listed, but instead it tries to search for it in Edge (or now copilot).

      I have never wanted to use the device search as a way to search the web.

      edit: There’s a recent question about it, and the solution was to edit the registry with a new value. That is not something I would feel comfortable walking someone through:

      https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-to-disable-search-the-web-completley-in/ea22410a-3031-487f-b5de-5a0113d656c5

      • @dustyData@lemmy.world
        English
        10•1 year ago

        I love that when in Linux a solution suggest to write into the terminal a verb and a noun, some people panic, get angry, lashes out, declares Linux unfriendly to users, etc. But somehow on Windows it was normalized that some stuff requires editing the registry, an arcane and ancient binary tree mess were stuff can only be found by recalling cryptic runes and nonsensical strings of numbers and letters, inconsistent naming, repetitive nomenclature with an eccentric GUI. And everyone just accepts that as a perfectly normal suggestion in detriment to Linux’s terminal.