[GNU-linux-libre] I can also bring tons of examples to illustrate a point, even big data, 3D, and cake (was Re: 10 minutes, and uzbl browser became usable)

[hellekin]

On 11/15/2016 02:57 PM, Zlatan Todoric wrote:
> 
> The only one treating users dumb here is you and your pal.
>

I think you misread an posted in anger, Zlatan.  Matt first mentioned
that "users are not dumb", but that's besides the point.  The point, and
I agree with you on that one, is that indeed, a computer user shouldn't
have to learn how computers work to use them, like a car driver doesn't
have to learn how cars work to drive them.

Now there's a difference between this and learning how to drive.  In
order to drive a car, you must learn how to drive.  That's not a
complicated process, you just have to do it.  People learning to drive
with mechanical gear will adapt much faster to an automatic gear than
the other way around.  That's because the former is more complex, and
involves the body more.  Clicking is to computers what the automated
gear is to cars: you let the computer do stuff for you that you'd
otherwise do yourself if you were not clicking; but then, if you were
not clicking, you'd probably learn quickly how to automate repetitive
things you do via a little scripting, and so on.  Going the other way
isn't easy because all you know of the computer is how to click in boxes.

I was quite terrified to see that a young man from the smartphone
generation in front of a text-only Web site with 'obvious' links would
be confused not to find any *button* to click.

It's not that he's stupid, it's that he made a habit of clicking buttons
to use a computer.  That indeed informs your mind to use this or that
interface.

People shouldn't have to learn how computers work, but that doesn't mean
they should be taught to use computers in a way Microsoft or Google
decides, "because they have the best designers": their designers don't
care about making users question their technologies, instead they like
their users predictable and docile.

People who think that they're one way to do computing are IMO the
enemies of general computing, and we should be wary of them.  They're
the same coming at you telling you they know best about [anything],
because they have 'working models', 'statistics', and so on.  And they
will come at you saying: look, this is how we can save time by modeling
the cake in 3D that you're going to send to your baker on his tablet,
and pick up in the evening coming back home...

No, you won't, because there's a real person called the baker, who wants
to hear from you, looking you in the face, how you like the cake.  This
person will learn much more from you than from a 3D model, and besides,
the 3D model is entirely incompatible with something he uses called flour.

And, BTW, there's no 'average user': the 'average user' is an invention
of people who 'think' with statistics and models and probabilities, and
can't make the difference between a dumb, or sensitive, or fragile, or
uninterested person, or between a person and a machine.

We're always the 'dumb' of someone else, especially in technology, where
ego is so high, and corporeality so distant.

==
hk