I’ve been thinking about the arguments that are increasingly common when dealing with tech: “it’s too complicated” and “I just want something that works”.
My father gifted a used computer to me and my brother when we were kids. Ours to use, ours to take care. He would pay for the eventual screw up, but we had to walk several blocks carrying the tower to get assistance.
I messed up a lot over the years, mostly because I wanted to explore the little that I knew and learn more. I had some magazines that expected everything to go well if instructions were followed and no access to internet forums to ask for help. I was limited to just one language as well. I had to find a way out. Nowadays things are much more simple and really just work, until they don’t and I can’t really fix them.
In this world, what people can do is complain. Or offer a report of how things went wrong and wait patiently. It’s not even that common for people in general to just go back to the version that worked. There’s no version, only the app we use or can’t use and it’s not our responsibility any kind of maintenance.
I have to confess I was going in another direction when I started, but things are really limited from a consumer’s point of view. In part, it’s our fault for not wanting to deal with the burden of knowledge, it inevitably takes the control away from us, but big tech really approves and incentives this behavior.
As with so many problems I see in the world, education is the solution. And educating ourselves might be the only dependable option.
I’m a bit torn on this one.
On the one hand, enabling non-technical users to use technical things is an incredibly fantastic expansion of their possibilities and what they can do.
On the other hand, personally I wish computers in particular (including smartphones) were harder to use.
There are three reasons for that:
Requiring a minimum effort to learn how to use the internet is a great idiot filter. Being online (or, going back further, on FidoNet or a BBS) used to mean that the person in question has demonstrated at least rudimentary reading and comprehension skills. But what’s more important is that it also makes the experience of being online - or using a device in general - ‘worth’ more to that person - much as a thing that cost something is often treated better that the exact same thing for free.
I blame easy-to-use smartphones for a lot of ignorance in other places. The expectation that every idiot can press a few buttons and instantly get what they want is in many ways a dangerous mindset. Case in point - in the two years that our oldest kid (I truly love her, but sometimes …) has had her driving licence, she’s slashed four front tyres on kerbstones, drove around with the brake warning light on for at least two weeks, nearly ripped away the front bumper twice, and drove through a major city with a flat tyre. I shit you not. And according to her it’s all the car’s fault, because a) it hasn’t got 360° cameras for parking, and b) it’s supposed to tell her everything that’s wrong and where to have it fixed. In short, she has no idea how a car works, and she doesn’t care, because her expectation is that it should all magically fix itself just as on her phone.
Idiot-proof products effectively incapacitate many of its users. In order for a product to be easier to use, it has to take away decisions from you, or even the information that a decision exists. A minimum of knowledge gives you a lot more control over that thing you want to use.
Finally, as any software developer will be able to confirm, “make it idiot-proof and the universe will invent a better idiot.”