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"How to help someone use a computer.", a guide from 1996 (pages.gseis.ucla.edu)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology

36 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A friend shared a post from someone else that was talking about this article. I've quoted the text from that post below:

This is a 1996 guide on how to help someone use a computer. It's strikingly resonant with 'how to be a parent', or really 'how to help anyone with anything'. A nice example of "the universal within the particular"

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago (2 children)

In particular, I think there are parts of this guide that are relevant to how we introduce new technologies to other people, be it privacy tools or the Fediverse.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago

I agree, this is great. I really liked:

"Most user interfaces are terrible. When people make mistakes it's usually the fault of the interface. You've forgotten how many ways you've learned to adapt to bad interfaces."

and

"Whenever they start to blame themselves, respond by blaming the computer. Then keep on blaming the computer, no matter how many times it takes, in a calm, authoritative tone of voice. If you need to show off, show off your ability to criticize bad design. "

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, everything here is great advice for teaching anything to somebody. I'm about to be involved with my company's training soon, and I'm saving this article to refer to when I start writing our materials.

[–] KreekyBonez 2 points 8 months ago

I'm trying to take a more active roll in training new machines operators at my job, and it's only because the current training manager actively does the opposite of 90% of the stuff on this list. I'm getting tired of being called in to "fix" stuff that's just an error of bad training.