Infuriating when people can't use simple devices

FoxEye

FoxEye

FoxEye

Caporegime
Joined
17 Feb 2006
Posts
29,263
Location
Cornwall
I get so damned annoyed trying to teach certain people how to use consumer electronics (such as your humble Sky box). You patiently explain that the arrow keys move the selector up/down/left/right.

You reassure them that whenever they are stuck, they can read the instructions on the screen, and just *do what it says*. It tells you what button to press, and when.

Then you get told that they haven't watched TV for days because they "don't understand technology".

Technology? Since when has reading instructions in English been high technology? And haven't directional arrows been around for several hundred years?

But put these simple concepts on an electronic device and many people convince themselves they can't do it.

Utterly soul destroying when you have to try to break down a barrier which is nothing to do with technology, and everything to do with mental obstacles.

I'm not a damn shrink and I can't be arsed to deal with these people (but I have to). But one of these days I'm going to lose it, I swear.
 
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All in all, yes it is annoying.
 
I'm sure it's because of people like that that we end up with remote controls with a dedicated button for each operation. So much for context sensitivity.
 
FoxEye said:
I get so damned annoyed trying to teach certain people how to use consumer electronics (such as your humble Sky box). You patiently explain that the arrow keys move the selector up/down/left/right.

You reassure them that whenever they are stuck, they can read the instructions on the screen, and just *do what it says*. It tells you what button to press, and when.

Then you get told that they haven't watched TV for days because they "don't understand technology".

Technology? Since when has reading instructions in English been high technology? And haven't directional arrows been around for several hundred years?

But put these simple concepts on an electronic device and many people convince themselves they can't do it.

Utterly soul destroying when you have to try to break down a barrier which is nothing to do with technology, and everything to do with mental obstacles.

I'm not a damn shrink and I can't be arsed to deal with these people (but I have to). But one of these days I'm going to lose it, I swear.
Click to expand...

I used to work in sky tech (Call centre) and yes most of the issues were just people being stupid. Not even old people either, a lot of young people.

Even after telling them it was £65 for a technician to come fix it they still couldn't do it.
 
One day when all the kids have Omicron Mental Implants and you're trying to configure your Zeta HoloCAD to output on at least 3 DeltaISOs and you don't have a clue which OmniBlock you've actually got to use then you'll understand the person you're moaning about.
 
airwave99 said:
I'm sure it's because of people like that that we end up with remote controls with a dedicated button for each operation. So much for context sensitivity.
Click to expand...

Context sensitivity is all well and good, but it's implemented so badly on pretty much every remote control I've used.

If you have an all-in-one remote then you have the same buttons (sometimes with two or more icons) to perform different functions depending on the context, but there's no way of knowing what the context is without pressing one of the buttons.

If the remote has been sitting on the table for a while then chances are you're not going to remember the context. Pressing the power button could turn off your TV, set top box, DVD player, whatever else you have it set for and you have no way of knowing without potentially turning the wrong thing off.
 
I recently had a "disagreement" with my mum regarding the remote control for the stereo. She was unable to pause, rewind, skip tracks etc because she "doesn't understand technology".

I pointed out that the icons on the buttons to perform those operations were almost as old as she was, and it was nothing modern or complicated.

Didn't go down too well :p
 
Ah tell me about it OP. I was a 1st-line tech a few years back.

- Can you type in www.google.co.uk ... only to find that they have typed it into the search bar instead of the address bar.

- Oh the printer's not working. Is it plugged in? No.

- Some bint ringing to get support for an item we haven't supplied (iPod)... while waiting in a queue at Alton Towers! Taking the ****.

- Customer insisting that we supply them a new laptop A/C lead because they stepped on it.

- Customer asking us how to install a cracked copy of Office lol.

- Parent of customer asking us to reimburse eBay debts of said customer, because of course, it is our fault! :rolleyes:

Very glad I left the end-user sector, but I wouldn't mind rejoining tech support in the corporate sector. No viruses etc.
 
Modern interfaces are awful.


Washing machine:
I can identify one freaking icon on there, the wool wash, everything else is meaningless so I use the same program my wife appeared to use and just vary the temperature occasionally.

Dishwasher:
Again, what's the difference between an icon showing a pile of plates and a pot, and the icon showing a pot and a pile of plates? And do I want the asterisk symbol on or off?
WTFing **** designed all this poo anyway?

Cooker:
Mine is OK, but I've seen eye level knobs with icons printed on the side of the knob no bigger than 3mm high, and yep they were all meaningless too.

Printers:
You don't want to hear me talk about printers, you will lose the will to live before I even get started on fracking printers :mad:


Frequently I find my working grasp of the Klingon alphabet the most appropriate skill for operating these stupid machines.
 
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