Comments on: Idiot users? Nope. Just unfair expectations.

By: John

John — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 13:49:48 +0000

It’s not ignorance that annoys people, it’s denial.

For example, if you asked me to field strip an M-16 I’d tell you that I don’t understand what you’re asking me to do. That’s because I’m ignorant of what “field strip” means (I could guess, but I still wouldn’t know how to do it).

Imagine though, that I said “yeah, sure… I’ll field strip the M-16. No problem. I’m really good with M-16s.” A little while later, having turned three bystanders to corpses, and having shot myself in the foot, I’d explain what went wrong. “Look, I’m really good at field stripping, and I’ve worked with heaps of M-16s before, and basically I’m just totally friggin’ awesome at everything I do… it’s just that it turned out that some stupid person left that particular M-16 loaded.”

That’s the problem with “stupid users”. They either don’t know or won’t admit their ignorance. They blame others, they think they’re awesome, and they have no idea what they’re doing. You can usually spot the “stupid users”, because they run around calling other people “stupid”.

By: Jeff Staddon

Jeff Staddon — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 17:44:08 +0000

I believe the root “problem” is that in a growing number of human fields of work the normal course of “change” includes an ever growing percentage of technology. Very few people outside of IT have enough knowledge of technology to be able to (correctly) envision what/where technological components can/should be created/deployed. The result is poorly handled change management. (That is becoming progressively worse.)

It is critical to the future of business in this nation (and the world) for non-geeks to learn enough about technology to be able to correctly envision where technological components fit within the broader context of their work areas. . . and a wake-up call to us geeks on our responsibility to teach the non-technical world how to appropriately apply technology.

By: glenc

glenc — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 15:28:48 +0000

Yes I think it did and we’ve all encountered those users where we have to – like you said – go take a break for a while to keep from saying something you’ll regret.

I read your post, liked it, and wanted to add a little more from the empathy/role reversal angle.

By: Mr Angry

Mr Angry — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 06:18:49 +0000

I hope the fullness of the article did show I was cutting users some slack – even if I was having a laugh at their expense. Also, a point about your analogies which are quite good – they actually identify the users I think really are idiots. I’m not expecting them to be able to field strip an M16 but THEY think they should be able to and they blame me for their inability.

Even with the really annoying ones, in real life I try to help them rather than mock them. Oh, and so far as my name goes, I publish anonymously – just call me Mr Angry.