When I was growing up, we had operating systems that exposed a lot of the technical details about their inner workings, and websites that let us use code to customize them, like MySpace and Geocities. UX designers in tech have since optimized away most of the stuff that allowed and encouraged people to learn to use technology and now people get confused by files and browser tabs. And as the knowledge shrinks, more and more things have to be simplified away. I only ever see it as a one way road.
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The core problem is the commercialization of it all. Companies started wanting to sell computers and software (and show ads) to people who don't want to put in any effort to educate themselves how to use these technologies. This is how we got this relentless simplification.
Except some people just don't want tech anyway. I have an elderly relative who is essentially forced by the society to have a smartphone. It's quite predictable that she would sometimes ask me "Grisha, why is it not working well, can you take a look" and I'll see all kinds of nasty bloatware and adware she inadvertently installed. It happened on several occasions. I was able to put an end to this by setting up system-wide ad blocking via DNS like I do on my own devices.
This is what convinced me that the society needs to change to make the use of tech a choice, not a burden.
A legitimate perspective. I understand it as a technique driven perspective.
Let me add a second perspective. Reduction is an art. If ‘form follows function’ hard work is required. If done right the outcome can be pure esthetics. Thin of Braun Hi-fi equipment, Apple iPhone, Jacob Jensen, Bauhaus Designers a.o.
There are many other perspectives.
Why does it matter whether people know how to use files and tabs or re-install their operating system? Isn't it better to let people get on with their day? Well, it's like with everything in life, ignorance costs a premium. If you are ignorant of something, you can be taken advantage of. Apple sells you expensive devices capable of running any program in the world, but keeping an iron grip on what you can run on it. Google is following suit. Many such cases.
@Gargron Ignorance comes with a price tag, but that doesn't mean avoiding it is always the best move. Many a times it is worth it. Files, for example, anyway are an abstraction. There are many abstractions, but I'd say it is more important to understand and take a call how it affects you and the society.
Google taking control of everyone's Android is being run entirely through Google Play Services, not the Android OS. I certainly don't want to be party to that.
@Gargron do we have a deal?
@Gargron You clarify that you are talking about iOS/iPadOS because I've never seen an "iron grip" on MacOS that prevents me from running what I want. Between brew and compilers, MacOS is still fine in this respect.
@Gargron very well said. Big corporations can also lobby for laws they want due to tech illiteracy. Mostly tech literate society would never allow mandatory identification on web
@Gargron They're coming for the URL bar next I suspect.
@Gargron I wouldn't be so dire: when I was growing up only a small subset of people was using computers and the vast majority used MSDOS or Windows 95 with closed source software. Today's population using and understanding open source software/hardware is incredibly larger than 30 years ago. So, people mindlessly using chromebooks and browsers today are the equivalent of yesterday's TVs and washing machines users.
May I remind that current Linux usage numbers on the desktop are about 5% (grossly underestimated).
And no, having to do with monstrosities like CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT was not that educational... 😄
@Gargron Remember when they remade old reddit without custom subreddit CSS? They promised they would build appearance settings to compensate, but no matter how many you put, a finite collection of settings can never replace everything you can do with arbitrary code. And even if they let you send feedback to request missing features, it would still be a pain in the ass to get support to add what you ask for instead of making it yourself in minutes.
@Gargron i agree. i feel like the ability to customize, tinker, modify, edit... even hack (gently) websites and web apps especially has been taken away over the past 10-15 years of so. editing the live HTML of a Myspace page back in the 2000s almost feels impossible without all of the guardrails put in place today. it was actually fun to grow up on the internet and with computers during the 90s and 00s!
So.... does this mean custom native Mastodon UI css and scripting on a per-user, or per-instance basis will be officially supported sometime?
@Gargron For me it was Neopets!
@Gargron Yes, but it's also worth considering that, by today, there are people using this kind of technology that, three decades earlier, weren't still nowhere near tools more technologically complex than a TV set or a radio receiver....🙈
@Gargron Yes!
And while I appreciate that one should not need to be a nerd to use a computer, I also don't see the drive towards computers as locked-down appliances as desirable.
@Gargron that's because you're technically proficient.
@odr_k4tana And why am I technically proficient? It is because of what was available for me to play with when I was growing up. Something no longer available to newer generations.
@Gargron @odr_k4tana Hello, this is someone who grew up using fancy UX and iPads. There was more than enough stuff for me to play with and break as I grew up - from Scratch to HTML and JS to finding ways to bypass firewalls to "Swift Playgrounds." It's not because people don't have the option to learn - it's because they don't have the desire. The way you create that desire isn't by presenting weird and complex flows to get essential things done - it's by socially rewarding the process of gaining knowledge - allowing people that learn CSS to show off their styles on their profiles, allowing people to share little games they make, and bigger ones and even full apps. In the meantime, making getting stuff done harder doesn't serve anyone.
@JadedBlueEyes @odr_k4tana You are not disagreeing with me.
@Gargron @odr_k4tana As a counterpoint, microcontrollers today are so much better and so much cheaper than they ever were in the past it’s ridiculous. People who want to learn how computers actually work have never had it so good.
@Gargron @odr_k4tana
Eugen - I remember installing Slackware (4) from 3.5" floppies because my CDROM was not supported, and then learning how to roll my own device driver so I could used the ROM drive. It never worked quite right but I learned a lot in the process.
This. This, we have taken for granted for too long'
@Gargron nope. That digital behaviourism stuff is not true. You are/were interested in it and actively pursued it. Contrary to the average Mastodon user's beliefs (apparently), most people are not inherently interested in tech. They use it, but hate having to deal with it.
@odr_k4tana @Gargron I mean you're both painting with too broad of strokes in your generalizations and missing wide swathes of populations while neither of you is technically wrong about the specific users you're talking about. Usability is a spectrum and creating a one-size-fits-all UX is an antipattern no matter how much or little it abstracts away decision making possibilities from the user.
Open standards, data, and interoperability enable these experiences for the whole spectrum. MySpace was a great example because you didn't have to understand HTML/CSS to use it, but if you wanted to understand it then you could use it to personalize your page, if you didn't care one bit about learning any of it but still wanted to personalize your page then it opened a market for templates and style generators with better usability, and if you had no interest in any of that then the app was no less usable.
