Dear Users... (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people)

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RecoveringYuppy said:
A lot of people were baffled by Windows at first, it's really not obvious how to use it when you were seeing it for the first time. Doubly so if no one had told you about double clicking.
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This was a Macintosh. First GUI I'd ever seen. First mouse, also.


All my experience had been on mainframes and small ... what did we call them? ... VAX, Northstar, and other microcomputers with CLIs.
 
That (and I'm really reaching back into the ole' memory here) but the very, very early GUIs had more of just a simple "Point and Click" interface (I think in the very early days the industry was split on if mice or light pens was going to become the defacto standard) without any of the dragging/dropping, double clicking stuff. More like just a straight "Touch here" menu system.
 
xterra said:
This was a Macintosh. First GUI I'd ever seen. First mouse, also.


All my experience had been on mainframes and small ... what did we call them? ... VAX, Northstar, and other microcomputers with CLIs.
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"Minicomputer", IIRC. With probably less power than the one in my pocket. Heck, my septic system probably has more processing capability than the old VAX 11/750 I used.
 
Trebuchet said:
"Minicomputer", IIRC. With probably less power than the one in my pocket. Heck, my septic system probably has more processing capability than the old VAX 11/750 I used.
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Minicomputer - right! Remember the PDP series? What about the Xerox Sigmas? As for power, I remember when we very proudly announced that we had upgraded the IBM to a whopping 360k of core memory (real core).

I also remember processing probably the same sort of thing your septic system does: GOGI to GIGO to wherever.


Gad, I am old.
 
Trebuchet said:
"Minicomputer", IIRC. With probably less power than the one in my pocket. Heck, my septic system probably has more processing capability than the old VAX 11/750 I used.
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It would certainly be faster processing with more RAM (the 750 had 14MB max). But the I/O rates of the old VAX systems still compares very well with most modern computers today, because the technology has not advance a lot since then. Also, most modern PCs tend to use most of their CPU cycles calculating and displaying video stuff (Aero anyone?), not so much doing crunch work. Which is why you could have a hundred users running simultaneously on a 750, but such a load would tend to sink a modern PC.
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
A lot of people were baffled by Windows at first, it's really not obvious how to use it when you were seeing it for the first time. Doubly so if no one had told you about double clicking.
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Yeah, someone definitely said to me "double-click things to open them" that first time I sat down at a Mac. That was about the only instruction I needed.
 
arthwollipot said:
Yeah, someone definitely said to me "double-click things to open them" that first time I sat down at a Mac. That was about the only instruction I needed.
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I remember reading a story when the Mac was introduced about a test that was done in which number of users were sat down in front of one with no instruction. Nobody at all figured out double-click without being told. It was a workaround due to Steve Jobs's insistence on just one button.
 
Trebuchet said:
I remember reading a story when the Mac was introduced about a test that was done in which number of users were sat down in front of one with no instruction. Nobody at all figured out double-click without being told. It was a workaround due to Steve Jobs's insistence on just one button.
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That sounds about right. Like I said, once I'd been told that I could pick pretty much everything else up myself.
 
Trebuchet said:
I remember reading a story when the Mac was introduced about a test that was done in which number of users were sat down in front of one with no instruction. Nobody at all figured out double-click without being told. It was a workaround due to Steve Jobs's insistence on just one button.
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IIRC, the double-click mode was already in use on the Xerox WIMP interface at PARC when Bill Gates "copied" it.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Jesus Christ I will never get over how picky users are about how software "looks" when it functions exactly the same.
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Depends what you mean by 'functions exactly the same'.

If you move where all the buttons are, then it isn't functionally the same.

If you move where all the information is, then isn't functionally the same.
 
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3point14 said:
Depends what you mean by 'functions exactly the same'.
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What I mean is if your job is done completely on a computer and you put "Excellent Computer Skills" on your resume an upgrade from Office 2007 to Office 2013 shouldn't cause you to completely shut down and be unable to function.

I'm not talking about users who had to have one or two new features explained to them. I'm talking about 50-60% of the entire general workforce walked into the office, logged into their machines, brought up their e-mail* and then completely shut down, I mean just literally refused to do any work, because their email "looked different."

And we had sent out a company wide e-mail the previous week explaining exactly what we were doing.

*Some didn't even get that far. They refused to click on the Outlook icon on their desktop because it "looked different."
 
Admin: I'm trying to remotely remove your software from 10 of our machines.
Me: What error are you getting?
Admin: None.
Me: Please describe what you're doing, what you expect, and what happens instead.
Admin: The 10 machines are powered down. They don't respond.
Me: You cannot remotely access a powered-down machine. It's not running.
Admin: But...
Me: No.
 
JoeMorgue said:
What I mean is if your job is done completely on a computer and you put "Excellent Computer Skills" on your resume an upgrade from Office 2007 to Office 2013 shouldn't cause you to completely shut down and be unable to function.

I'm not talking about users who had to have one or two new features explained to them. I'm talking about 50-60% of the entire general workforce walked into the office, logged into their machines, brought up their e-mail* and then completely shut down, I mean just literally refused to do any work, because their email "looked different."

And we had sent out a company wide e-mail the previous week explaining exactly what we were doing.

*Some didn't even get that far. They refused to click on the Outlook icon on their desktop because it "looked different."
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Thanks.

I only ask because I sometimes designers and users mean very different things when they say 'the functionality remains the same'
 
Norman Alexander said:
And that, children, is the difference between Windows 7, 8 and 10.
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Nope. UI changes are generally not functional changes. Providing shared network folders to store and retrieve work product is a functional change. Slightly adjusting how the file explorer is launched is not a functional change.

UI changes can be disorienting and even a little counter-productive, but at this point pretty much everyone has been through two or three versions of an OS by the time they enter the workforce - not counting their phone(s). Normal human beings should be able to say "oh, new UI, give me a couple hours to adjust," and then get back to carrying out their job functions (which haven't actually changed in any significant way).

The problem, I think, is that most people think the UI is the function, and have never thought beyond that point.

Once upon a time, I studied an Intro to Computers textbook that demystified most of what computers are. It explained that computers have four basic components:

1) CPU
2) Disk
3) Memory
4) Input/Output

Since then, I'd say a fifth component has been added:

5) Network

The CPU executes instructions. The Disk stores data while it's not being used. Memory stores data while it's being used. I/O allows the user to interact with the computer. And the Network connects the computer to other resources, including resources that mimic or replace functionality of the computer itself.

There are nuances and exceptions, of course. But it's easier to understand the exceptions once you have the basic concepts. Once you understand that Disk is where you store your files between use, then you can make sense of the exception - you can store files in memory, too. And you can even store working data on Disk instead of in Memory. And you can store your files on the Network, which is really just a disk on a different computer. Etc.
 
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