Keeble

Keeble

@Keeble

"the bird"

left wing bird, online and trying this " alternative social media" thing again. recently unionized barista. Weekly wikipedia streamer. ❤ @proxy ❤30. Avi: me!

last.fm listening

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Keeble
@Keeble
yaodema
@yaodema
Xuelder
@Xuelder

The Study That Made Me Change How I See My Job

This study by Nielsen Nelson literally changed how I see the world when it came out.

From its own summary: "Across 33 rich countries, only 5% of the population has high computer-related abilities, and only a third of people can complete medium-complexity tasks."

When you read what they consider medium-complexity tasks, you will probably head desk. But this is the computer skill level of the general population. When you make applications, you have to consider these are your users, and you need to accommodate them. Which also leads me to why I feel this study needs a follow up. After around 10 years of improving UX since this study started we have seen a significant increase of usability, but I believe a lot of other computer skills have atrophied in its wake. In that time, we built out an infrastructure around simplifying computer use for the average person, and I believe we are now victims of our own success. What a lot of us consider basic computer skills has been seen as black magic by the general public for years.

At my alma mater, they are calling for the state to bring back typing classes because kids don't know how to use a file path, or sometimes they never learned how to type. PCGamer had a similar piece about this a couple years ago. Part of this is the shift to mobile and tablets, and it's not entirely a bad thing. In a lot of cases we have created expert photoshop users who don't know where their photos are saved to, and they frankly don't care. They are complacent in their walled garden app store and are comfortable. I just hope the search function doesn't get bugged on them one day, cause that will cause a lot of chaos for them.

shel
@shel

Every day I encounter people who have only ever used their phone for everything you use a computer for and don't know how to use a mouse or keyboard and jab the monitor with their fingers. People who don't know the words upload or download. People who don't have an email. Or people who insist they do know how to use a computer and are very good at them and then ask me for help printing something from a page that has a giant blue PRINT button that actually downloads a virus.

I think a lot of tech savvy millennials take for granted that a lot of office jobs are seen as skilled labor because computer skills actually are really complicated skills that not just anyone knows how to do. You might think "all I'm doing is using MS Office to type shit up and make basic spreadsheets and manage emails" but like there's a lot of librarians with masters degrees who absolutely struggle with that stuff even after "15+ years of experience with MS Office"

Whether the work being done is necessary for the economy is another question but when it comes to salaries being set by supply and demand, the supply of people competent enough with computers to do these "basic easy things" is actually much smaller than you think. It just seems bigger because your own individual life is mediated by computers

mattcolewilson
@mattcolewilson

This is extremely resonant. At both my current and previous job, I've had director-level employees ask me to do extremely basic things for them — like delete a slide from a PowerPoint presentation or edit text.

At my first office job out of college, way back in 2010, we realized that most of the salespeople did not know the basics of using a computer. So we created a short and extremely simple test to be used during the interview process, with questions like: "Which of these is an email address?" And let me tell you, the vast majority of applicants failed. (So much so, that they would usually just hire them anyway, lol.)

And like, no hate or anything. It's actually kind of impressive that people can function in an office setting without knowing a lot of this stuff. But it obviously is (and has been) a concerning trend as technology consumes more and more of our lives!

I guess a silver lining is that if you're savvy, you should realize that your own knowledge and skillset is more valuable than you may initially assume. I'm very glad I actually had typing and word processing classes in high school. (Bring 'em back!)

shel
@shel

If you know the verbs "click" "copypaste" "drag and drop" "unzip" "upload" and "right click" then you are in a minority

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in reply to @Xuelder's post:

adorablesergal
@adorablesergal

I feel there's an edge of, "if you don't use it, you won't need it" in modern society that wants to cut out all cruft and hone children into no-frills workers (and also obedient consumers).

This is added atop the already horrendous digital divide between those who have the time and the money to familiarize with computers and those who don't.

It really is a good way to put it, being victims of our own success, because the success condition has been cutting out cruft and making things more simple and efficient, but it's done in the context of being driven harder to work more and consume more.

Not everyone has to become a senior-level programmer, but the ability to choose to become more skilled despite easier UX is rapidly being taken away even among the privileged. If I wanted to write a dystopian novel, I'd craft a story where everyone has lost the ability to code anything new, and they're fed algorithmic recycled content like some fucked-up cultural human centipede.

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enni
@enni

One of the only pieces of Warhammer 40k lore I've learned is that that is the foundation for why the setting is so fucked up.

At some point they made super advanced AI that started doing all the invention for them, to the point where human inventors were not necessary. Went on for centuries or millenia, idk.

When the AI rebelled and tried to wipe them out, humanity destroyed all the super AI. All their old automated factories still work, but now no one knows how anything works to the point where it's fully magic to them.

They talk about "rituals for awakening the machine spirit" when they are really just going through the normal boot up sequence for a smelting factory.

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LucasTheDrgn
@LucasTheDrgn

I sent a programmer that's like, 20 years my senior a .7z file because I just hit that instead of .zip and figured "eh, it's a better compression ratio anyway" and he replied "What is this. Please resend it as a zip and refrain from using this file type in the future." I was so caught off guard.

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adorablesergal
@adorablesergal

It's horrifying to me that it never occurred to him to simply look for something that opens 7zip, because that's my reflex action if I encounter a strange new file format, and as shitty as modern web search is, it can still locate some useful things...

... and I guess that's the whole point of all of this discussion is the fact that this is a thing that happens, and happens more frequently than people think, even among those we assume as being tech-literate.

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secrets
@secrets

tbf if i was an old fogey and had not learned about winrar from pirating shit in my teens one look at winrar would set off all my bonzi buddy free toolbar alarm bells

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Renpona
@Renpona

the important question isn't "could the senior programmer have done this", but rather "would this have been a good use of the senior programmer's time"

getting a mystery filetype in the email with no explanation, and having to google around for a program that can open it, then checking that the program is safe and complies with corporate requirements, and then installing it on a work PC is a waste of time that he could have spent on something more important

whether or not he could do all of that, the fact is that it's pointless for him to do so. everyone on the team can already create zips and open zips. it's quicker and easier for him to dash off an annoyed email telling you to use the format he can already open

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adorablesergal
@adorablesergal

That's a really good point. I think most any org is going to have strict IT procedures to follow, and even installing a new browser extension has to make it past review. 7zip files would have to pass that same review, so the senior dev here would most definitely be in his right to say "wtf? do this over"

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aune
@aune

going to be honest, with most IT policies these days, i've noticed that zip files get blocked because "THEY COULD CONTAIN ANYTHING"

i've had to do the "rename .zip to .txt to send it to someone" thing within the last month

7z worked fine :|

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Renpona
@Renpona

If they don't have to know where their photos are saved to, then honestly, good for them! That's a sign that usability has gotten way better! Instead of saying "I just hope the search function doesn't get bugged on them one day", let's say "I hope app developers don't break crucial interface elements one day".

It's easy to take pride in our skills and look down on people who don't have them, but a fair percentage of my computer skills were learned not because I liked them but because they were a necessity for dealing with the busted-ass computers of the 90s and 00s. I haven't had to change the graphics color depth in twenty years, and that's a good thing! I'm glad zoomers don't have to remember to change the system graphics settings every time they want to play a game because the system will freeze up and crash if they play a game with more than 256 colors.

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fizbin
@fizbin

My father (born mid-1940s) tells me of when his employer was first rolling out new mainframes with these "disk file system" things where your data would be stored in a name abstracted behind a file system layer instead of an actual physical location and some customers' IT people would freak out that they wouldn't know where their data actually was.

This was calmed over by making a utility that turned filenames into information about where, physically, the data for that file was.

Now think about how we look back on those people in the early 70s and smile thinking "what a silly thing to worry about".

Why was it a silly worry? Why is it fine to let go of where data is physically (until doing forensics or similar), and rely only on the name, whereas the idea that an expert photoshop user wouldn't know the directory name where is represents a crisis of "people can't use computers"? What qualitative distinction do we have that gives us any indication that we're worrying about a real thing any more than the people who were freaked out that they wouldn't know where their data was physically?

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tayior
@tayior

i think the thing that made this obvious to me was when I wrote a piece of software, without configuration (which means, clicking 1 option out of a selection of about 3), wouldn't work. There was a message at start up saying "hey, you need to click 'options' and select which option you want to use". i'd implement proper onboarding later i said (i never did)

the amount of support tickets i got saying "doesn't work" with no body, and after asking them what was wrong, "i get an error". i ask them what the error was, "something about not having something selected". and i'd copy and paste the exact error message text to them and they'd be like "thanks that fixed it".

i understand not being technical. i understand that that wasn't the peak of UX. however, i don't feel it's too much to ask to read the error message than to waste their own time and mine

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nutty-country
@nutty-country

I mean computers of any kind are just absolutely terrible and disgusting devices. The less people need to use them to live their lives, the better. We don't need more eyes looking at screens.

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in reply to @shel's post:

KatherineGaymes
@KatherineGaymes

My opinion in this regard is that is kind of irksome though, because with so few people being considered "tech literate", even those of us who laugh at the idea of a job where you can literally just send emails all day, it is really hard to actually get a job like that. There is an age bias where they will want an older candidate who can claim "15+ years of experience", whether or not they can even change the font size in MS Word, instead of someone who has been a techie since they could walk. Most people with hiring power dont actually know how to judge a candidate accurately

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in reply to @mattcolewilson's post:

Xuelder
@Xuelder

There's that old chestnut, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." I feel like instead of teaching a man to fish with a pole, explaining bait, how the tides correlate with fishing patterns, etc. we ended up just developing the solution equivalent of giving the man dynamite and assumed he had a net.

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in reply to @shel's post:

lapisnev
@lapisnev

I wonder if there's any other profession where the people who know how to do it think it's super easy baby shit everyone knows how to do and the people who don't know are completely hopelessly lost, because it seems like it's always and most extremely computer skills

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Xuelder
@Xuelder

For a long time it was car maintenance, but now with all the electrics and on board computers it really does take a specialist to deal with a lot of the problems. Also, home improvement and property maintenance. The amount of people who don't know how to trim bushes, mow the lawn or even basic gardening would surprise you.

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nex3
@nex3

I think a crucial factor here is that, in addition to the "basic" skills, there are many more tiers of skills that get progressively more advanced and difficult. People who understand how to email and unzip probably also understand that they don't know how to set up an email server. People who know how to set up an email server understand that they don't know how to code a new one. And so on—the deeper you get, the more challenging the next level seems, which by contrast makes the earlier levels seem all the more trivial.

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zdarlight
@zdarlight

I can't speak for everyone, but I've gotten the vibe before that a lot of lawyers and law students (including me sometimes!) vastly overestimate the average person's familiarity with legal processes, and often even overall literacy.

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shel
@shel

Step 1 of filing a lawsuit is you hire an attorney. Then the rest happens. For people who only ever use computers at libraries, step 1 of printing a document is you get the librarian, and then the rest happens. No matter how many times I teach them how to do it themselves and demonstrate that it does not take a 6-year education to do this, it doesn't matter. Step 1 is you ask the librarian and then the rest of it Just Happens and you don't really need to pay attention or retain any of it even when they make you do all the steps yourself.

If I was filing a lawsuit I think I'd be the same though. I'd sign the paperwork my lawyer gives me but I probably wouldn't remember what paperwork is needed or why.

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fizbin
@fizbin

The vast majority of people can, with just a few months training, run a mile and get times under 14 minutes.

Also, the vast majority of people cannot run for a full mile. If you take them unannounced and ask them to, you're likely to get times in the 15-20 minute range, and much of the distance will have been walking.

If you ask on a hobbyist running forum they will guess that most people can run a mile in about 10 minutes, because that's the time you get when you're non-competitive but not fundamentally out of shape. The idea that most people won't even be able to keep running for the whole mile won't even occur to them, so they won't figure that into their estimates.

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censa
@censa

huh. I had not thought about this because many of my friends do computer things professionally and I'm definitely not as good at computers as they are so therefore I must be average or below average, right? but apparently, wrong

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Reydia-Live
@Reydia-Live

The older I get the more I realize that my skill set that I thought was woefully insufficient is actually pretty advanced, I just don't have the unheeded confidence or salesmanship of, say, a 57-year-old Greg who refuses to use Google.

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