Seeing IT from another perspective.... or I'm surrounded by the computer illiterate!

[gamblingman]

So I've been out of the mix on here for a long time. Got away from computer for awhile and then got busy with work, so much work! I'm in construction now as white collar and enjoying it as its pretty stable and it isn't the same thing everyday.

I used to mess with computers all day, everyday especially in college. I was a freakin addict and couldn't learn enough. Life interrupts us, and I got pulled away from a lot of the things I used to enjoy. I learned A LOT on this forum. If it weren't for the long term users you see around like Johnb35 I wouldn't have the knowledge set I do.

One thing I never realized fully was how utterly incapable the average user is of doing nearly anything on their computer. The things nearly all of us take for granted and do as reflex, the regular user finds incredibly complex and annoying. Say you want to transfer a set of files from your download folder to another location on your local drive.

Now imagine that takes at least 30-45 seconds to complete. Click the individual files you need from the host site, find the download button then click it and wait for the green circle at the bottom to finish spinning. double click that and pick the individual files out and CUT THEN PASTE EACH FILE to your desktop... then slowly repeat to transfer to your desired folder.

This is the rule not the exception, its the rule. The main thing I hear from everyone is "I hate computers, I dont know why we cant just use paper for everything!". Maybe you've heard some of this from people occasionally. But trust me that users dont say hardly anything to IT about any issues or difficulties because "IT is just gonna messup my stuff and do things to my computer!".

When I started in this estimation position I quickly became "the IT guy". I slowly introduced new ways of doing things that we undeniably better ways of doing things and did not require any additional user knowledge. For instance I created standard forms for commonly used documents with adobe where the user no longer had to hand write anything, no printing the doc to sign it and scan it back in.... now they can type what they want in predefined blanks and keep it. I added shortcuts to commonly used folders in explorer, I got everyone the adobe pdf reader or pro version and uninstalled all the other "its a pdf creater progrem for fRee", got us on dropbox instead of FTP.

Those were small items but they were each massive steps to the majority of our users! You cant imagine the hesitation of some users who were legitimately worried that a new program or a shortcut to a folder would delete their files!!! It was nearly comical at times.

The main thing I can pass along today is when dealing with users keep it more than simple, make it dumbed down. You know how people say "pretend youre talking to a child".... no, you need to pretend youre talking to someone who is scared the computer is an unpredictable machine that is complex and confuses them to the point they'd rather carve stone tablets than use a mouse.

Imagine you're explaining the monthly maintenance routine via email... "please leave all workstations user accounts logged out but the station powered on, if you are out of the office be sure to connect to the vpn so we can connect and recombine hash to localize the points of diversion to distribute mathematical anti telliharsic halfphatum floating bit points into a stable matrix.....".

THATS WHAT IT SOUNDS LIKE TO THE NORMAL PERSON!!! I couldn't believe it at first because I was so deep into the IT mindset that our terms are normal. But most people have spent their life focused totally on other things than computers and how to use one. Then we come in as a stranger and start throwing a bunch of mental wrenches in their minds and confusing them with new terms and ways of doing things. The answer to talking to average users about a topic like monthly maintenance is NOTHING! Yeah, if youre telling them what youre doing and when I promise youre gonna confuse people and annoy them. You should be like Futurama... When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

So work behind the scenes, via automated tasks. Need to restart servers? Do it over the evening about 6pm or during a friday lunch time when nobody will notice or care.

Want a few tips more I've seen work to get your clients to relax and get used to your team?

Let me know what you think and next time I'll try to expand on this. This isn't a perfect view of what I'm seeing but its pretty accurate, at least from the massive world of construction workers, both white and blue collar.

 

[voyagerfan99]

Completely stupid. That's what most people are.

I have a client that is a law office. They learned how to get things done in say Word by clicking a certain button. If that button isn't there, then they don't know how to do the action, nor get the button back. It's painful.

Have you ever found yourself here? This is a great place for comical IT posts.

https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/

 

[gamblingman]

Completely stupid. That's what most people are.

I have a client that is a law office. They learned how to get things done in say Word by clicking a certain button. If that button isn't there, then they don't know how to do the action, nor get the button back. It's painful.

Have you ever found yourself here? This is a great place for comical IT posts.

https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/

I totally understand the "button" scare! Sometimes people delete the shortcuts to their network drives and freak out that they've lost everything.

I reddit some, but I don't like it much anymore. It's grown into a corporate machine for advertising. The breaking stories also don't get to the top and the ones that do disappear soon after. It's totally lost the news edge it had. I still enjoy it for a few niche subs, but they don't have big user bases.

 

[Geoff]

I totally understand the "button" scare! Sometimes people delete the shortcuts to their network drives and freak out that they've lost everything.

That's completely understandable from a consumers point of view. They had an icon they clicked on to access their data that is no longer there. They don't understand the difference between a folder and a shortcut most of the time.

 

[beers]

Even people in other IT roles can be completely clueless. My company provides EHR software and we ship out VPN appliances for remote connectivity for some of our products. It's unbelievable how many 'network engineers' cannot provide two interface addresses with next hop information, and have a similar fear that everything will magically catch on fire..

 

[gamblingman]

everything will magically catch on fire..

It wont?! Lol

 

[gamblingman]

That's completely understandable from a consumers point of view. They had an icon they clicked on to access their data that is no longer there. They don't understand the difference between a folder and a shortcut most of the time.

What really irks me is that I've tried to explain that it's just a shortcut to the actual location and shown them where the folder is and how to find things. I stopped "doing it for them" as most people can't learn by watching, they have to do it themselves to remember... but even that only works about 50% of the time.

I'm pretty sure that part of it is that they just don't want to do it themselves, they want someone to do it for them. I won't do that anymore since realizing it's unproductive.

 

[Shlouski]

I think that intelligence has more or less no impact on peoples ability to use a computer. I base this conclusion on the many experiences I've had in aiding and teaching people in the basics of using a computer. My own father had a scholarship to one of the best schools in Britain and was studying for his law degrees at the age of 16, then went on to successfully run a large law firm in manchester until the time of his retirement, for him just typing and printing a word document was a challenge. My mother a member of mensa with a QI of 165 is completely lost when it comes to computers and it has taken me years to get her to understand how skype works and to check emails, but shes getting better faster. Before anyone says anything I know, why is it with these parents I ended up the way I am, maybe brains skip a generation in my family, with any luck my kids will be super smart . It not just my parents, I've tried helping many people over the years with varying results with seeming no correlation with intelligence. Another example being my spanish teacher who seems to learn a new language every year, but shes basically given up ever understanding computers. In contrast I have enough problems with my native language nevermind trying to learn a new one, but with computers I'm comfortable multitasking on 3 or 4 different screens, controlling multiple computers performing a variety of different tasks. If you go on youtube you can find even more proof that even the stupid are seeming able to operate computers sufficiently enough to record videos and upload them . The brain is a complex confusing labyrinth making it seemingly impossible to understand why people are capable or excel at somethings while being incapable or completely inept at others. This being said research shows rather understandably that the younger are usually more capable at learning to perform new tasks, so people who were introduced to computers at a young age usually use them as if it was second nature. I think that its perfectly understandable that many people aren't able to get to grips with computers, like some people are incapable of: learning new languages, learning musical instruments, art, cooking and I guess a million and one other things, even if we were capable of doing everything, nobody has the time or will to get good at everything.