🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thu, 13 Jan 2000 07:29:09 -0000, Trevor Best (trevor@easynet.co.uk) 
wrote in message <85lo09$t58$7@quince.news.easynet.net> to 
uk.comp.os.win95:

> Being a programmer, I regularly come across this level of intellegence in
> clients. When I tell them to print they ask "how?" <sarcasm> oh, not that
> there's a big button on the form with a picture of a printer on it or
> anything like that to help them </sarcasm>
> 
> Also, after getting new users onto 95/98/NT4 they see Windows booted,
> nothing on the screen apart from a button marked "Start", you know the next
> question "Where do I start?"

I think the problem is that some people *expect* computers to be 
difficult to use. Certain bits of them can be pretty intimidating to 
those not familiar with them (for example one of my current projects is 
playing about with a web server, learning CGI programming and improving 
my HTML -- which is something of the extreme end of what some people 
call "making a website") but there does seem to be some reluctance to 
get out of the "it *must* be difficult to use mindset." 

To a certain degree I think it's actually fashionable to say that 
technology of all kinds is incomprehensible. Things like Video Plus and 
Star Sight were designed to make videos easier to program but people 
still complain about not being able to program them. My video came with 
a quick start guide and a pretty clear manual but I suspect there are a 
few people who don't bother with manuals and just try to guess that the 
big butten labelled "Video Plus/Timer Rec" on the remote is used to get 
to the Video Plus menu. It does seem to be socially acceptable to be 
ignorant of technology in general. When I tell people I'm a software 
engineering student I usually get some kind of response like "that's far 
more than I'll ever know. Can you sort out my computer for me?" 

If people can stump up the knowledge to do something like driving a car 
(which is difficult enough) then surely they can come up with the nous 
to use a computer. Can't they?

-- 
Marcus Houlden    Check the headers for ICQ, website and PGP details.
"*I* know it's not the millennium. *You* know it's not the millennium.
Now please excuse me, I'm off to the party."