You realize this is the same argument people use to mock and dismiss autistics like you and me? “If he didn’t want everyone to hate him, he should’ve spent a little while learning how to socialize properly. If he’s not interested in how people interact, it’s his own fault if he alienates people.”
Closed-minded neurotypicals think that if the nuance of social interaction doesn’t come easily to you, you must be stupid, and you deserve for bad things to happen to you. You’re making exactly the same judgment about people who don’t find it easy to study and grasp the full breadth of cryptography, cloud storage, malware, social engineering attacks, and the default settings of every single device and application they’ve ever used.
Think for a minute. If a device is usable enough, why would anyone spend time engrossed in a google search for a manual? I’m serious.
This is how humans naturally approach and handle most devices. Only extremely recently has this technology been associated with consequences well beyond the immediately obvious.
Also, have you ever actually looked for manuals for relatively obscure devices? Getting results and getting useful results can be pretty parallel experiences.
Because they have to understand the principles and implementation of the features they wanted. Show me a device that’d be as primitive and feature-free as a Polaroid camera and I show you a device nobody bothers to buy.
You have to learn how to use even a stupid hammer. There’s a plethora of hammer types, and then there are the metallurgy issues - get one with its head hardened too much (and therefore becomes too brittle), and you risk losing an eye due to a metal shard. Same for knocking a hardened steel part (e.g. a drill bit) with even a not-too-hard hammer. This cost people a number of eyes already; a fate quite worse than a stupid nude photo leak. (See e.g. a case in Lewis, Reynolds, Gagg - Forensic Materials Engineering, where metallography was used to identify the origin of a steel shard in the worker’s eye which he lost. He didn’t get much of compensation because he self-inflicted it by not using the soft steel tool to remove the drill bit and just whacked it with a hammer.)
Yes, and they are more plentiful than service manuals for the same.
I used to not do so. I used to spend time explaining and helping and techsupporting, both on the job and unpaid. I hoped to build karma so I’d get some of the time back in form of some social help. Guess what? It didn’t work. I just had to watch the know-nothings taking my effort, then getting obnoxiously happy with somebody else, and then feeling entitled to my time for free or peanuts.
Then something broke in me.
Edit: Also, people typically don’t know what they want. Did you ever try to get decent, detailed specifications that could be understood, without first having to learn their job?
No they don’t. Why would you think this is a universal behavior? One of the key words was also implications, some of which are not even always predictable on the part of a device’s designers. Obviously, this isn’t always covered in a manual—and even if it is, can you appreciate how counterintuitive aspects might be?
[quote=“shaddack, post:23, topic:75338”]Show me a device that’d be as primitive and feature-free as a Polaroid camera and I show you a device nobody bothers to buy.
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No, ease of use doesn’t have to come at the expense of utility (unless you’re not paying attention to consumer devices at all, which seems unlikely). If a device’s interface is accessible enough, you can actually accomplish a lot without cracking a manual.
Assuming of course, the manual itself is actually a functionally useful document—it isn’t always.
Sometimes they aren’t even familiar with the underlying concepts. Hard to go intuitively there.
Some users have to learn the hard way that things work better when they are switched on.
Some cannot even match a connector to the proper socket. I saw people trying to plug a 3.5mm jack into the hole in a cinch (or RCA jack) connector. [facepalm]
Quite like real-world.
C’est la vie.
Either you have enough controls for it to be actually controllable, or you sacrifice features.
The less dumb the user, the more accessible the interface. (Not always but pretty generally.)
Quite often it is. RTFM will save your bacon more often than not. Often enough for it being worth trying.
