Good insight, it's a basic principle of user design. Always assume your end user knows less than you do, and less than you think they do. Design to make it easy to use, and then work on making it...
Good insight, it's a basic principle of user design. Always assume your end user knows less than you do, and less than you think they do. Design to make it easy to use, and then work on making it clear what's going on.
It blows my mind how constantly you see products that don't understand this, and a mass user base/dev side that thinks its ok. Linux was this way for a looooong time, and most recently I found...
It blows my mind how constantly you see products that don't understand this, and a mass user base/dev side that thinks its ok. Linux was this way for a looooong time, and most recently I found Mastadon to also not "get" it.
Yeah, I’m a programmer, but I still found the idea of having to choose an instance in order to set up a Mastodon account kind of off-putting. I understood the instructions, but my reaction was,...
Yeah, I’m a programmer, but I still found the idea of having to choose an instance in order to set up a Mastodon account kind of off-putting. I understood the instructions, but my reaction was, “How should I know what server I want to use? I just want to get on Mastodon.” They really need to set up an account creation path with preselected options that you can change if you actually care. 
Mastodon especially drives me insane because for a lot of people you could say "it's like email, you just make an email on one site and can talk to everyone with a Mastodon" and that would be much...
Mastodon especially drives me insane because for a lot of people you could say "it's like email, you just make an email on one site and can talk to everyone with a Mastodon" and that would be much easier understood by a layperson compared to however they describe accounts, instances and federation.
It's a Unicode indicator that an objects code wasn't found. They might be using an out of date emoji keyboard, or a glitched speech to text tool. I'd guess the latter.
It's a Unicode indicator that an objects code wasn't found. They might be using an out of date emoji keyboard, or a glitched speech to text tool. I'd guess the latter.
Linux can still be this way if you happen to have an unfortunate combo of distro + hardware. To my knowledge for example only a handful of distros have a good out of the box experience on Nvidia...
Linux can still be this way if you happen to have an unfortunate combo of distro + hardware. To my knowledge for example only a handful of distros have a good out of the box experience on Nvidia (either including the proprietary drivers or offering them for one-click install and updates in the setup wizard). Other distros require some command line finagling to get those installed and auto-updating correctly.
Yeah. What drives me nuts though is the attitude you can get. I'm far from a tech beginner, but it's so so easy to go down the wrong path or second guess yourself, and something that turned me off...
Yeah. What drives me nuts though is the attitude you can get. I'm far from a tech beginner, but it's so so easy to go down the wrong path or second guess yourself, and something that turned me off for 10 years from linux was getting treated like shit for daring to ask questions and not just "read the documentation" or "code my own driver", when I'd been trying to do the first for days and had no idea what the second even meant at the time.
While 'code your own driver' is extreme, RTFM is a somewhat valid complaint against users, and has been since the dawn of consumer electronics. The number of blinking VCRs was a harbinger of what...
While 'code your own driver' is extreme, RTFM is a somewhat valid complaint against users, and has been since the dawn of consumer electronics.
The number of blinking VCRs was a harbinger of what was to come.
RTFM is unhelpful to anyone asking a question, full stop. The only person it helps is the person who says it, in that it allows them to vent their frustration (in arguably an unhealthy way)....
Exemplary
RTFM is a somewhat valid complaint against users, and has been since the dawn of consumer electronics
RTFM is unhelpful to anyone asking a question, full stop. The only person it helps is the person who says it, in that it allows them to vent their frustration (in arguably an unhealthy way).
Mentioning that something is in the manual while replying to someone with the answer is way more likely to actually change the behavior of the person asking the question, as it won't put them on the defensive and it won't chastise them for not knowing. Sometimes people need things explained in a different fashion than it is explained in the manual, such as the need for additional structure or for steps to be explained in more depth.
RTFM also ignores documentation design. I've had people tell me to read the manual and the manual is 1000 pages of techno jargon written in a confusing way and I did, in fact, look for the piece of information in the manual first and was unable to successfully find it. Or, sometimes it was there, and I just couldn't make sense of it because I didn't have the necessary knowledge to decipher what's in there or even understand the other steps I needed to do.
Tech consistently has a problem of elitism, which persists to this day and exists in a form where it doesn't nearly anywhere else. While elitism is easily found in other places, the hostility towards an end-user which doesn't possess the same skill set and the frequency at which some tech folks use this as a point of pride and virtue/skill signaling is hardly matched in any other sector or place that I can think of offhand. Folks who are deep in tech often forget to center the human and in fact often actively alienate them (e.g. by creating acronyms like PEBCAK to de-center the human) to the extent that entire subfields of tech which re-center the human had to be created (user interface, user design, etc.)
Also, I don't think it's a stretch to imagine that anybody seriously saying "RTFM" obviously hasn't gone through the, "how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich" mental exercise which is a...
Also, I don't think it's a stretch to imagine that anybody seriously saying "RTFM" obviously hasn't gone through the, "how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich" mental exercise which is a must for understanding user needs.
For example, documentation for command line tools suitable for some task a general public total newbie is trying to accomplish aren't the least bit helpful, because such a user has about a mile of steps sitting between them and the documentation. They likely don't even know what a command line is, much less which commands are relevant to the task at hand, and also won't have the mountain of assumed knowledge required to make sense of the documentation of those commands even if they do find it somehow.
Your point about documentation design is salient too. Non-technical users think in terms of tasks and results, not tools and commands, which I think is a major point of friction.
The number of times I’ve seen RTFM used in a reasonable way vs being used as a put down after ignoring that the user already has and is still confused does not line up with it being valid advice....
The number of times I’ve seen RTFM used in a reasonable way vs being used as a put down after ignoring that the user already has and is still confused does not line up with it being valid advice.
Yes that is sometimes the truth but there’s a lot of elitists who seem to think that just because they understood it first read you should to, and more often than not I’ve noticed they’re the ones who will give bad advice because they didn’t actually read your question. And that’s before you get into the super common hypocrisy that they themselves asked questions that could have had the same answer spit back at them.
It is ALL OVER stack overflow and one of the few legit uses I see out of AI is being able to safely ask clarifying questions on technical material you’re unsure about. Sure it might lie to you, but at least it’s not actively bullying you
This quote highlights a thing that has been bothering me recently: either people who write software don’t consider themselves creatives, or they don’t consider creatives to be technicians.
This quote highlights a thing that has been bothering me recently: either people who write software don’t consider themselves creatives, or they don’t consider creatives to be technicians.
Good insight, it's a basic principle of user design. Always assume your end user knows less than you do, and less than you think they do. Design to make it easy to use, and then work on making it clear what's going on.
It blows my mind how constantly you see products that don't understand this, and a mass user base/dev side that thinks its ok. Linux was this way for a looooong time, and most recently I found Mastadon to also not "get" it.
Yeah, I’m a programmer, but I still found the idea of having to choose an instance in order to set up a Mastodon account kind of off-putting. I understood the instructions, but my reaction was, “How should I know what server I want to use? I just want to get on Mastodon.” They really need to set up an account creation path with preselected options that you can change if you actually care. 
Mastodon especially drives me insane because for a lot of people you could say "it's like email, you just make an email on one site and can talk to everyone with a Mastodon" and that would be much easier understood by a layperson compared to however they describe accounts, instances and federation.
Unreleated but what is this  character you wrote? It appears as OBJ written inside a square.
It's a Unicode indicator that an objects code wasn't found. They might be using an out of date emoji keyboard, or a glitched speech to text tool. I'd guess the latter.
Thanks, I’ve wondered what that is myself. I did use text to speech when I posted that comment.
iPhone by chance? Their speech to text has a habit of dropping little Unicode poops. 😂
Yes, and I've noticed that this only seems to happen for iPhone users. I just wasn't sure if it was confirmation bias.
Linux can still be this way if you happen to have an unfortunate combo of distro + hardware. To my knowledge for example only a handful of distros have a good out of the box experience on Nvidia (either including the proprietary drivers or offering them for one-click install and updates in the setup wizard). Other distros require some command line finagling to get those installed and auto-updating correctly.
Yeah. What drives me nuts though is the attitude you can get. I'm far from a tech beginner, but it's so so easy to go down the wrong path or second guess yourself, and something that turned me off for 10 years from linux was getting treated like shit for daring to ask questions and not just "read the documentation" or "code my own driver", when I'd been trying to do the first for days and had no idea what the second even meant at the time.
While 'code your own driver' is extreme, RTFM is a somewhat valid complaint against users, and has been since the dawn of consumer electronics.
The number of blinking VCRs was a harbinger of what was to come.
RTFM is unhelpful to anyone asking a question, full stop. The only person it helps is the person who says it, in that it allows them to vent their frustration (in arguably an unhealthy way).
Mentioning that something is in the manual while replying to someone with the answer is way more likely to actually change the behavior of the person asking the question, as it won't put them on the defensive and it won't chastise them for not knowing. Sometimes people need things explained in a different fashion than it is explained in the manual, such as the need for additional structure or for steps to be explained in more depth.
RTFM also ignores documentation design. I've had people tell me to read the manual and the manual is 1000 pages of techno jargon written in a confusing way and I did, in fact, look for the piece of information in the manual first and was unable to successfully find it. Or, sometimes it was there, and I just couldn't make sense of it because I didn't have the necessary knowledge to decipher what's in there or even understand the other steps I needed to do.
Tech consistently has a problem of elitism, which persists to this day and exists in a form where it doesn't nearly anywhere else. While elitism is easily found in other places, the hostility towards an end-user which doesn't possess the same skill set and the frequency at which some tech folks use this as a point of pride and virtue/skill signaling is hardly matched in any other sector or place that I can think of offhand. Folks who are deep in tech often forget to center the human and in fact often actively alienate them (e.g. by creating acronyms like PEBCAK to de-center the human) to the extent that entire subfields of tech which re-center the human had to be created (user interface, user design, etc.)
Also, I don't think it's a stretch to imagine that anybody seriously saying "RTFM" obviously hasn't gone through the, "how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich" mental exercise which is a must for understanding user needs.
For example, documentation for command line tools suitable for some task a general public total newbie is trying to accomplish aren't the least bit helpful, because such a user has about a mile of steps sitting between them and the documentation. They likely don't even know what a command line is, much less which commands are relevant to the task at hand, and also won't have the mountain of assumed knowledge required to make sense of the documentation of those commands even if they do find it somehow.
Your point about documentation design is salient too. Non-technical users think in terms of tasks and results, not tools and commands, which I think is a major point of friction.
The number of times I’ve seen RTFM used in a reasonable way vs being used as a put down after ignoring that the user already has and is still confused does not line up with it being valid advice.
Yes that is sometimes the truth but there’s a lot of elitists who seem to think that just because they understood it first read you should to, and more often than not I’ve noticed they’re the ones who will give bad advice because they didn’t actually read your question. And that’s before you get into the super common hypocrisy that they themselves asked questions that could have had the same answer spit back at them.
It is ALL OVER stack overflow and one of the few legit uses I see out of AI is being able to safely ask clarifying questions on technical material you’re unsure about. Sure it might lie to you, but at least it’s not actively bullying you
This quote highlights a thing that has been bothering me recently: either people who write software don’t consider themselves creatives, or they don’t consider creatives to be technicians.