Real users

The other day I was reading an interesting article from the depths of the internet about 'real users', the vast majority of computer users and how they are different from the rest of us.

It was from 2003, some website developer was talking about how on his ISP's home page there was a link to a 'search' page, which had a list of links to that era's top search engines, like Yahoo, and MetaCrawler and so on, sites that have all but disappeared now. The article went on to say that when it was time to revamp the site, the developer got rid of the search page and just replaced it with a google search windowy thing or something, if people really wanted to use Yahoo, or Metacrawler they'd know the URL by now and could just type that into the address bar.

When they changed the website, there was a avalanche of complaints from customers who liked the old 'search page', and who couldn't find Yahoo anymore, it was like it had ceased to exist. The developer couldn't quite understand it, but it seemed the vast majority of people who used their ISP, had set the ISP homepage as their homepage and were otherwise completely lost if they couldn't just click through to search.

They are the real users of computers, people who don't quite understand the way it works or even think they need to understand they way it works.

In the comments people added their own stories of woe, stories of encounters with 'real users' who used computers every day, but didn't quite 'get' it.

Like people who don't use the address bar in their browser, they only ever get to things through having google as their homepage, and just entering everything there. The very existence of a URL is a mystery to them. This still happens, in 2008 the technology blogReadWriteWeb was lamenting how the vast majority or respondents in some market research don't use the address bar.

Even in February 2010 ReadWriteWeb did an article that had the words Facebook and Login in the title, magic google juice flowed and it became the top result when you search google for 'Facebook login'. People arrived at as site that wasn't Facebook and complained they couldn't login, three thousand or so people leaving comments along the lines of

Ok If I have to I will comment,I love facebook so right now just want to log in if thats ok with you..lol Keep up the good work...

They were completely lost.

I've grown up with computers and the internet, I have a little bit of a blind spot for how other people can not have the same understanding. The other day I was asked "What's the difference between Chrome and the internet?" Sure there are gentle answers to such questions, but all I could do was pat their hand and say "Don't you worry your pretty little head."

'Real users' get scared on Microsoft Word when you put on to make nonprinting characters visible. They're having problems with the layout, so you click the icon to see what's going on, and suddenly they protest, "No, I don't want that!", so you patiently click them off, and mystically explain that there's a few tabs there and a section break where it shouldn't be. The 'real user' looks at you in utter disbelief, wondering how you can possibly know such things.

There's something in that "No, I don't want that!" cry, it reminds me of the sort of thing my three year old niece would say.

'Real users' get confused when you move the icons around on their desktop, or if an icon gets obscured by some other window in front of it. If they can't see it, it has ceased to exist. Its like playing peekaboo with a six month old nephew "Where's teddy gone?", "There he is... behind the cushion that I just put in front of him."

Hmm, a six month old can figure this out, why can't 'real users'? What's wrong with them?

I kind of understand, in the early eighties, about eight hours after we first acquired an Amstrad CPC 464, I remember my brother playing 3D Monster Chase, I watched him for hours, my brain/eyes couldn't understand what was going on on screen, its seemed like some kind of coloured bowtie matching puzzle game, rather than the low-tech Doom clone game that it was. It was a few days before I could comprehend the image as a 3D scene.

'Real users' haven't had that epiphany yet, of realising that Windows are representations layers of panes that can be moved about. 'Real users' don't get that nonprinting characters are helpful and don't print.

The thing is, 'real users' can be spectacularly successful in their endeavors. Just pressing enter lots of times to get to a new page in Word doesn't seem to affect the success of their careers. Sure it may mess up the rest of the document if you need to change something on the first page, but that can be fixed easily.

If people knew about manual page breaks then documents wouldn't need to be 'fixed easily'.

The success of Windows and Vista comes down to making computers dead easy to use, so real users can get churning out poorly laid out documents quicker, without having to learn the ropes. Google's success was in getting to porn just by typing the one word then clicking, without having to remember any of that "http://www." business.

As someone who isn't a 'real user', a geek possibly, it dismay's me that rather than making 'real users' understand things and expand their mind's instead life just gets easier for them.

But no no, the vast majority of people are real-users.

In most offices, when you stand up and look around, most people you see are real users. They're working hard, getting stuff done, but they don't know what they're doing really.

TheESSEX

Where is Wickford?
Where is Shenfield?

What do these places mean? What should they mean to me?

There's engineering work on the trainlines so I have to get a replacement bus on my way east to visit the niece, my brother and sister-in-law. Its a warm day, you are my indian summer, maybe the last of the year, the citizens of Wickford and Shenfield are out with their friend nd loved ones, drinking and holding. I am on buses and trains on my own, scribbling.

It didn't have to be this way.

Months ago I bought a new mobile phone, a Sony Ericsson K800i, with the intention of being able to send emails and update my various blogs whilst out and about

Those bastards at CarPhone Warehouse sold me a pudding. Battery life is down to 8 hours now, thats with using it for one phone call and two text messages a week, the memory is too small to surf the web and email is impossible to set up. The wee cover of the camera is badly designed, it keeps sliding open in my pocket and taking photies of my shrapnel. How can something be designed and sold so bad?

Those bastards.

Also my own fault for not taking it back to the shop.

CarPhone Warehouse = bunch of cunts

Sony Ericsson K800i = shittest phone ever

...

A girl sits next to me on the bus, lack of empty seats. She's tall, in her early 20s, blonde hair and kind of stocky. I think I'm in love with her.

Pale skin, small delicate hands, she keeps adjusting her top so it covers the way her tummy bulges over the sides of her jeans.

My mind keeps drifting to wrapping my arms round her, her body soft under my fingers, kissing her neck.

I wonder what she smells like.

Crikey I need a girlfriend.

...

Back to reading this book, The17. Bill, the narrator, has just moved to east London in it.

At exactly the same I was driving to south London from Glasgow.

What went wrong?

Fulfilled

What a thrilling and action packed weekend.

All starting on friday just as I finished work and got a text from my friend Rowan who was down in London from Glasgow with her husband to see Sonic Youth, They beckoned me out to Camden, where we trawled through a few pubs, including The Good Mixer, it reminds me of the crowd from Sleazies, decamped to The Lauriston.

I managed to squeeze in an hour in an internet café too, just procrastinating. There are strange things afoot, and without knowing much about anything, its hard to fit the pieces together.

Saturday saw me wandering to Oxford Street to pick up a teach yersel Polish book, and getting a text from Fiona fae uni beckoning me to her flat to play X-Box with her boyfriend, in return they fed me and took me along to a barbecue in Ealing. The boyfriend Dom was pummelling me on the games and pummelling me for information about how to make money in the hi-fi industry reckon the answer is using environmentalism as a differentiator.

So this barbecue was for another Strathclyde alumni's birthday, no idea who she was but she said I looked familiar, cue Fiona joshing about me being in a band. They even gave me a lift back to my flat.

So Jill, Jax's friend, has been filling me with dread, socialising with Natalie, I'm pretty sure no good can come of this, but if I stay hundreds of miles away and keep my head down, maybe she'll forget about me. Damned monkey spheres.

Text message from brother and family on Sunday, beckoning me to a shopping mall, The Lakeside, near Dartford Crossing, which I assumed was near Dartford, south of the river aye? So I took the Southern Circular, expecting it to be just as useful as the Northern Circular. No chance, its the deformed runt-like little sister of the northern ring road. Took me straight through Clapham Common, and down windy roads, with a million junctions and traffic lights. Finally I emerged near Dartford to discover that I was on the wrong side of the damned river mate, and had to pay to get to the other side. Barstards.

It was nice seeing my niece and everyone, once again she was shy at first, but during lunch I took her out to watch the boats on the lake and the cadet kids canoeing, which enthralled her.

Over coffee later in the afternoon I snatched a swift bit of wifi internet to find the location of this evening's gig, and bade farewell to the family, the wean barely notice I'd gone.

Parked in a residential area near Euston and chatted to ma as I wandered to the gig, got there late, got bored, drew pictures, and scribbled.

Got home at about eleven, remembering I hadn't eaten all day, and well, kind of scared to use the kitchen at this time of night. I ought to get a packet of choccy digestives to keep in my room for these frequent situations. Or, more responsibly, start using the kitchen to cook food. This irregular eating and quality of food is killing me.

Ooh, I finished Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows at some point, and started Terry Brooks's Armageddon's Children, Genesis of Shannara. Potter was thrilling to the end, but a bit of a cheesy cop out ending, Snape resolved himself honourably. I think I identify with him a little more than I did in the earlier books. Its been decades since I read a Shannara book, this one's more post-apocalyptic than the fantasy of the earlier books.

Family time

Spent Saturday and a chunk of Sunday out in Burnham with the niece and family. Twas nice, we wandered out on the sea front where I haven't been since five years ago. Battery on my camera had run out of juice no so fun filled photies.

Now I'm back in Alperton, wandering if I should do lundry today or tomorrow, and if I'm going to the pub tonight.

Here's the video of the last song from the Wolfknuckles set at the 13th Not the other week. The sound quality's not too shabby.



I was great fun but compared to how it could have been if many more folk had come down, it fills me with feelings of sourness. I'm a friend who goes to your gigs, what are you?