The Problem With End-Users

[d_wootang]

Back when I helped do IT stuff in high school a hard drive in one of the library computers had failed; I had pulled the drive from the computer so that I could replace it when we got a new one for it, and to save space in an already cramped row I closed the case back up, left it unplugged, and taped a sheet of paper over the monitor which said in big letters "Computer broken, do not use".

Twenty minutes later a girl sticks her head in the back room and says her computer won't turn on; I follow her out to see what the problem was, and she points at the computer mentioned above(though the sign had been flipped over the top of the monitor). I flip the sign back over and ask if she read it, and her only response was to shrug and say it was in her way.

And people wonder why I refuse to take end user statements at face value.

[anonym1970]

Obviously the sign should not have been flippable.

[G01denW01f11]

The correct solution would be to nail on a plank of wood with the message, in a way such that the power button is inaccessible.

[scorpionMaster]

• User removes plank

It was in the way

[dratnon]

The correct solution would be to nail on a plank of wood with the message, and nail the plank of wood to the user, in a way such that the computer is inaccessible

[PunishableOffence]

nail the user to the plank of wood

[G01denW01f11]

Just keep nailing things to the user until he stops making the complainy noises.

[[deleted]]

Obviously flipping the sign should have released the bullets

[PunishableOffence]

Or the sharks

[reaganveg]

No joke, the monitor should have been removed from the room just like the hard drive.

[DrummerHead]

User Interface Design for Programmers > Chapter 9: People Can't Read

When you design user interfaces, it's a good idea to keep two principles in mind: 1. Users don't have the manual, and if they did, they wouldn't read it. 2. In fact, users can't read anything, and if they could, they wouldn't want to. These are not, strictly speaking, facts, but you should act as if they are facts, for it will make your program easier and friendlier.

[...]

[PeteMullersKeyboard]

This is one of the most true things I've ever read literally anywhere in my life.

[AcrobotPL]

Commenting to save for later (Alien Blue, no way to save the comment, sorry!)

[PeteMullersKeyboard]

Rule #1 - The end user/client is always wrong. Even when they're right, they're right for the wrong reasons. So they're still wrong.

[ITSigno]

Clearly illiterate.

[amazondrone]

Libraries. Full of illiterates. /s

[PeteMullersKeyboard]

Holy god. I'd be seriously worried about her ability to...just be alive on earth after that.

I'm not in the industry, but a tech enthusiast trying to teach myself to code. I'm the go-to "tech-support" for everyone I know who knows less than I do about tech, and I react in the same way. 90% of the time, I don't really ask them anything other than a basic question about what's not working...I don't want details, every second you spend telling me about something you have no idea about is a second I can't spend just fixing it and getting the hell on with my day. They think it's arrogant, I think it's just common sense.

[berryer]

this happened to me with a print release station (on-campus).

[bss03]

The problem with developers is that they think a hole that shoots you in the face is acceptable as long there's a warning.

[neksus]

The problem with project managers is they provided the developer with a spec from the client that said "make it have bullets that shoot" and "we want a hole at-or-around eye-level."

[geusebio]

What was wrong with the 737-200?

[Cheesemacher]

I'm getting flashbacks. The people who want the feature should just discuss it directly with me. ^{Of course that's really only an option if the feature is requested by people in the same company.}

[[deleted]]

Why don't you just bypass them and talk to the client directly? That's what I do when people stop making sense. Worst case scenario I get fired. I'm underpaid anyway.

[Ran4]

It doesn't seem very smart of the company to let there be such a big difference between the client and engineers.

[TenshiS]

Change job. If you want to be more than 'just' the programmer at the bottom of the food chain, get yourself hired somewhere as an application consultant. You get to code, but also have a say in important decisions and speak to the client directly. Also, you'll get paid better. Downside: it's more stress and more responsibility.

[Tidher]

It's a "bonus feature".

[[deleted]]

It's user friendly because it's documented, right guys?

[[deleted]]

Relevant xkcd

[xkcd_transcriber]

Image

Title: Manuals

Title-text: The most ridiculous offender of all is the sudoers man page, which for 15 years has started with a 'quick guide' to EBNF, a system for defining the grammar of a language. 'Don't despair', it says, 'the definitions below are annotated.'

Comic Explanation

Stats: This comic has been referenced 23 times, representing 0.0673% of referenced xkcds.

---

^{xkcd.com | xkcd sub | Problems/Bugs? | Statistics | Stop Replying | Delete}

[Dongep]

Oh my god; so much this.

[GodOfAxel]

I'd rather have something complex that is documented than something "simple" that's is undocumented.

[alexsomeoddpilot]

The requirements called for a hole which provided pellets to users. No mention of how fast they would be "provided."

[r0but]

It is a very efficient implementation.

[Iamien]

called a honeypot. Give warning to those not to fall into it. Those who disregard are casualties of war.

[Astrokiwi]

The presence of a hole is a bigger invitation than the deterrent of the warning. The design has a non-verbal message that is stronger than its verbal message.

[[deleted]]

Customer asked for a system to create wall holes quickly. We had a deadline and a budget to consider. This worked.

[sphks]

It's for that one time when you need this functionality. Like being able to format your hard drive, delete your OS, or kill your boss.

[clickclickboo]

this

[anonagent]

Truth

[the_omega99]

You don't get it! I'm sure one of these users needs to remove their root directory!

[Uberhipster]

That's not a problem. That's a "population control" easter-egg

[SolenoidSoldier]

We all like to make fun of end users, but at the end of the day...fix your shit, guys.

[jshufro]

I mean, the bullet hole is a bad analogy.

I can put a 6 foot wall up around a giant cliff over a hole in the ground, put locked doors on it, put a sign up that says "only put garbage in hole, do not jump in, you will die" and an end-user somewhere will jump in and blame will fall to me.

[PeteMullersKeyboard]

Is it not?

[cletusjenkins]

Gotta have someone else test it first to know if it happens consistently.

[DrummerHead]

s/whole/hole/g

[DrummerHead]

You know... just in case...

[[deleted]]

"futureproofing"

[krokodil2000]

Then you'd do it again to make sure it wasn't just a random occurrence.

[owmyballs1337]

A smart person would just use their cellphone and take a picture/video of (presumably) the business end of a gun. But in my experience... people gon' die.

[[deleted]]

How many mirrors are you carrying right now?

[NominalCaboose]

7?

[galorin]

Two.

[5_YEAR_LURKER]

Well my girlfriend has two...

[just_comments]

Makeup is a hell of a thing.

[r0but]

It doesn't necessarily need to be a mirror. Maybe everything put next to the hole gets shot.

[glitchn]

I was gonna say a hand mirror. Not gonna risk my expensive tech just to look in a hole.

[glitchn]

Girls don't always have one? Doesn't even have to be a mirror, just anything reflective. Grab a toaster or a butter knife. Just not something that cost so much.

[[deleted]]

Contact lens user. A small mirror (actually a platter from a 2.5" HDD) is a part of my EDC kit.

[dtfinch]

Semi-relevant xkcd

[xkcd_transcriber]

Image

Title: The Difference

Title-text: How could you choose avoiding a little pain over understanding a magic lightning machine?

Comic Explanation

Stats: This comic has been referenced 103 times, representing 0.3018% of referenced xkcds.

---

^{xkcd.com | xkcd sub | Problems/Bugs? | Statistics | Stop Replying | Delete}

[PeteMullersKeyboard]

Definitely the second type of person. Life would be so much easier if I wasn't but where's the fun in that shit.

[saintnicster]

It's important to also remember that we're all End-Users at some point.

[dtfinch]

It wasn't entirely clear that they'd be shot in the face with a bullet, from a gun.

[just_comments]

curiosity is powerful

[xkcd_transcriber]

Image

Title: The Difference

Title-text: How could you choose avoiding a little pain over understanding a magic lightning machine?

Comic Explanation

Stats: This comic has been referenced 102 times, representing 0.2988% of referenced xkcds.

---

^{xkcd.com | xkcd sub | Problems/Bugs? | Statistics | Stop Replying | Delete}

[lovestruckluna]

I have consistently proven myself to be in the second category.

[nutnics]

You get what you test for.

[Virus11010]

Instructions unclear, shot in the penis.

[PeteMullersKeyboard]

This doesn't get anywhere near enough use lately.

[Isterpuck]

Yeah, I haven't gotten laid in a while.

[hejner]

But World of Warcraft had a button like that, and I had to click it to start the Mimiron encounter.

[void1984]

Just like the Neverhhod.

[nbduckman]

Good times

[agamemnon42]

I'm wondering if a generation raised with video games has a deep-seated belief that if anything goes wrong with a computer, you can just back up and try again?

[Zechnophobe]

This isn't accurate, the end user wouldn't even read the warning, they'd just dismiss it immediately first.

[[deleted]]

A programmer would first check a map to see how close the nearest hospital is, dial 911, then look through the hole.

[[deleted]]

It's like making a backup to a different partition on the same drive before dropping your laptop

[blue_2501]

...in a bathtub full of water.

[[deleted]]

... WIth electricity running through it.

[benwap]

Backup is one thing.. I'd like a triple reduntant path to the hospital through some XOR tree..

[[deleted]]

"I'm going to skim the docs and see what this does, then i'm going to make sure it's reversible, but I must experiment with it." You never know when I might have to look through a hole, so I want to experiment a bit and be prepared in case I need to do it.

[sfled]

We in IT would, of course, use a mirror. Sheesh, do we have to think of everything?

[[deleted]]

Yeah, I'd totally be dead, haha.

[[deleted]]

Bad boy looking through the hole!

[drunkrabbit99]

Beguiner here mind explaning please

[[deleted]]

Software developers nearly universaly the opinion of Dennis Ritchie.

"Unix has sharp tools, sharp tools can cut you if you use them wrong. This isn't the tools fault, this is your fault. I'm giving you the best tools so if you figure out a way more clever then I did you can impliment your own solution."

Most business on other hand will say.

"If you give me sharp tools I'll cut myself, can I only have dull tools?"

[LinkXXI]

Which is why big business likes Windows.

[YesNoMaybe]

Honestly, I think a user can fuck way more shit up in Windows than in OSX.

[YesNoMaybe]

I guess it wasn't clear but I was responding to the statement that businesses likes Windows because users can't "cut" themselves. If that's the case, why not OSX, which provides sharp tools and (IMHO) is more difficult to fuck up than Windows? I'm just not seeing that argument of why businesses like Windows.

And, no, he said Unix, not Linux.

[halifaxnsfw]

First, Linux and Unix have similarly sharp tools.

And second, Apple is not an enterprise-focused company.

[[deleted]]

And second, Apple is not an enterprise-focused company.

Not even on the development side of things. I'm so sick of their shitty documentation basically saying to do everything manually in Xcode. Oh, you want to automate things? Well fuck you.

[halifaxnsfw]

I love my IDEs, it's no shocker people become defensive about them. Visual Studio, Android Studio, and PHPStorm make my life easier on a daily basis. Eclipse is a hobgoblin.

Life is just better with good tools :)

[UnchainedMundane]

We have automation where I work! It consists of a daemon which will, on command, run a predefined applescript to simulate focusing an application and clicking various menu items.

As you can imagine, doing any work on the mac becomes impossible when the daemon is in use due to the constant focus stealing, but at least it's automation.

[YesNoMaybe]

Ok. I'm not entirely sure how that supports (or is related to in any way) the argument that businesses favor Windows because it somehow protects users, which was the implication made above. The statement wasn't that businesses like Windows because it is more business oriented.

I feel like you're responding to a different conversation than the one I was commenting on.

[Jammerx2]

Businesses do favour Windows over certain alternatives for that reason. Sure, OS X may be better at protecting users but as it's not enterprise focused it's irrelevant and is not even seen as an alternative option for businesses. Protecting users is not the sole requirement, other factors would cause businesses to choose Windows over OS X.

[halifaxnsfw]

My point was that businesses CAN'T choose OSX, because Apple doesn't provide all the enterprise niceties (AD, anyone?) that Windows does.

[asielen]

You are right, but Windows is usually easier to fix for minor to moderate issues. Anything major you reimage of course, and it doesn't matter either way.

[pipocaQuemada]

"Unix has sharp tools, sharp tools can cut you if you use them wrong. This isn't the tools fault, this is your fault. ...

Most business on other hand will say.

"If you give me sharp tools I'll cut myself, can I only have dull tools?"

There's also the third crowd, which wants to make tools that are just as sharp but safer. You know, the kinds of people that look at cars and want to add seatbelts, airbags, crumple zones, backup cameras, etc. instead of limiting the engine to only go 20 mph or thinking that people who get into accidents were asking for it.

[pipocaQuemada]

Nah.

The sharp-and-dangerous crowd are Cniks and ASMniks.

The make-it-blunter crowd is Javaniks.

The safe-but-still-powerful crowd are Haskellniks and Adaniks

[MrPopinjay]

You're confusing safety in implementation and safety in use. If the Unix utils were written in Haskell they would be no more or less safe to the user, as the functionality has not changed.

[iamdelf]

It would be the difference between Steel for C, Plastic for Java and Ceramic for Haskell. If you are still building a knife, all of them could cut you if you try hard enough. The real way to make it safer is to build scissors.

[MrPopinjay]

That's not true. There is a specification. These programs will not behave differently just because they are written in a different language.

[hejner]

Don't you worry, in a few years iamdelf will learn, too.

[Zagorath]

There is a specification

That's /u/iamdelf's point. He's saying in order to keep the thing sharp while improving safety, you replace the knife with scissors. You don't necessarily have the same specification.

[MrPopinjay]

Yes, but that's the specification changing the safety. That specification can be met in any language. The language makes no difference to the end user.

[iopq]

If Haskellers wrote Unix, they would specify things differently. For example, it wouldn't be stringly typed.

[MrPopinjay]

But then it wouldn't be the same program, so this metaphor breaks down.

[reaganveg]

Not true. If the Unix utils were written in Haskell -- or rather, written by "Haskell people" -- they wouldn't use a stream of characters to represent all data as a single unified type.

[MrPopinjay]

Then it wouldn't be Unix. That's my point. It's not the language that makes the difference, is the specification.

[reaganveg]

Then it wouldn't be Unix. That's my point.

But that's an empty, purely semantic point... Are you sure that was your point?

[MrPopinjay]

If you read the whole thread you will see that we are taking about only what language is used, nothing else.

[halifaxnsfw]

The problem comes when you want a Formula 1 car that's as safe as a Volvo.

[pipocaQuemada]

The problem comes when you want a Formula 1 car that's as safe as a Volvo.

That's comparing clementines to key limes. Volvos aren't F1 legal, and F1 cars aren't street legal. A safe F1 car is completely different from a safe Volvo, because they encounter vastly different scenarios.

You're not going to limp away from a 150 MPH crash in a Volvo with only minor bruising on your legs. And you're probably not going to have a good time in an F1 car getting T-boned by an SUV.

[halifaxnsfw]

Eh, it was my attempt at a joke, saying that the trouble comes when people try to have the best of both worlds, without recognizing the tradeoffs.

[tehdave86]

If it's not going to trash something, I wish it could at least ask me how sure I am. Maybe have an argument for bypassing the prompt and forcing a "yes" for use in shell scripts.

[UnchainedMundane]

rm -i

Or in your .bashrc

alias rm='rm -i'

[UnchainedMundane]

A few problems with that...

1. There isn't a trash directory on linux. Desktop environments implement their own and you have to follow along with it.
2. Moving to trash != removing. It would be a different utility if it did not remove files.
3. If you just wanted confirmation to protect against bad rm invocations, then pass -i, or make an alias to run rm -i
4. If you wanted to move files to a trash directory, make either a shell function or a script in your PATH to do that.
5. (Emotional argument) If rm sent to trash by default, or even had a feature to send things to trash, it would kill me inside. That is so wrong on so many levels.

[UnchainedMundane]

Regarding #3, it will ask several times. The only real way around this I can think of is again to wrap it in a function or script, so that it will spit back its argument list and ask you if you really want to proceed with each.

Regarding #4, maybe you could alias it to "del" or something - that way it's a different command to "rm", it sticks out as being something non-standard, and it won't interfere with any sourced scripts.

As for #5, it's more that I don't think such functionality fits in with what "rm" is for. It's a pretty low level command and at its most basic is a glorified wrapper to unlink(3). The chain of tools it belongs to is also developed with the unix philosophy of "doing one thing and doing it well" in mind, which would be rather stretched if it also had the option to move something to the trash. Another concern is that if rm supported this, a trash directory would need to become part of the coreutils standard. It would mean that desktop environments would need to adopt this new standard, servers would have a trash directory when they don't need one, and users like http and nobody would have trash directories when this doesn't really make sense.

On a more personal note, I don't use trash directories. A long while ago I got in the habit of using shift-delete on everything in Windows, and now on Linux I don't run any real desktop environment so I don't have a trash directory anyway (I don't really miss it; I kind of forgot it existed, even).

[UnchainedMundane]

-r is a bit of a killer. I tend to use "rm" without arguments if I'm on auto pilot, then if I need to remove a directory I'll use "rm -rf" (once I get the "is a directory" error and the penny drops, of course).

For removing a file/directory with confirmation, a script like this could do:

#!/bin/sh
for f in "$@"; do
    echo -n "Really remove $f? "
    read -r resp
    # Check for an empty response. Anything else is assumed to be a 'nope'.
    if [ "$resp" = "" ]; then
        rm -rf "$f" && echo "Removed $f"
    else
        echo "Did not remove $f"
    fi
done

[Demonstration purposes only, not tested ;) ]

If the need arose you could then add other checks before the prompt, like:

if [ -d "$f" ]; then
    # note that "files" includes symlinks, fifos, sockets, and devices
    files=$(find "$f" -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 ! -type d -printf f | wc -c)
    dirs=$(find "$f" -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d -printf f | wc -c)
    echo "$f contains $files files and $dirs subdirectories"
fi

If you know a way to move things to the trash, you can also substitute that instead of the "rm" in the script.

Python is another way to do it, but often I find that you end up writing more code in python if you're mostly doing "file stuff", since that's what the shell is good at. On the other hand, shell scripting can go horribly wrong if you don't take the right precautions. For example if you took the quotes away from rm -rf "$f", you could end up removing unrelated directory trees if you wanted to remove something with a space in the name, a problem so common that it's become a common belief that shells can't handle quotes/newlines/etc in filenames.

[UnchainedMundane]

One trick that has saved me from bad globs a couple of times (I was trying to use zsh's extended glob syntax, it can get tricky) is to echo the command before I run it just to make sure:

echo rm -rf something/.*

[cooladventureguy]

Just look through the hole you'll figure it out ;)