this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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xkcd

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xkcd #1172: Workflow (imgs.xkcd.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/xkcd
 

Title text: There are probably children out there holding down spacebar to stay warm in the winter! YOUR UPDATE MURDERS CHILDREN.


Transcript[Changelog for version 10.17 of a piece of software.]

One change listed: "The CPU no longer overheats when you hold down the spacebar"
Comments: LongtimeUser4 writes: This update broke my workflow! My control key is hard to reach, so I hold spacebar instead, and I configured Emacs to interpret a rapid temperature rise as "control".
Admin writes: That's horrifying.
LongtimeUser4 writes: Look, my setup works for me. Just add an option to reenable spacebar heating.

Every change breaks someone's workflow.


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[–] deweydecibel 107 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

Counterpoint: devs frequently downplay user's needs and inflate the importance of their own ideas, and because they're often in an echo chamber of their own team's environment, they never hear meaningful kickback from anyone they respect (because they certainly don't respect users).

Then they share this comic back forth literally every time users complain.

Someone, in the slack channels of reddit's devs, shared this exact comic with this exact attitude because of the backlash. And it was met with the same approval as the comments here.

[–] Ape550 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is it exactly. Was a product manager and this is exactly the issue I faced with devs that had no real world usage experience.

[–] PRUSSIA_x86 3 points 1 year ago

People often forget the value in field verifying and it drives me insane.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Our users are literially the most irritating people on earth

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Wh have met with the users who use our product. But they don't seem very able to articulate what it is they actually want or need from the system. It's always vague ideas and nothing actionable.

Them: Oh we need to be able to find customers even if they can't remember their account number.
Us: Yes but you can, just enter the company name.

This is usually met with either a vague "yeah" or "no not like that", and then they never elaborate.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I met a user for a tool I built at work. It was the worst.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Nah. I'm pretty sure they're mad too. They just can't really do anything against it since it's not their decision