Stories and lessons from working with Jeff Bezos on the original Kindle

Re:Stories and lessons from working with Jeff Bezos on the o... by alpaca128 on Sunday August 02, 2020 @03:34AM (#24027058)

> It’s also possible that people who read on these devices aren’t tech savvy enough to care about how awful of an experience it is.

Absolutely.

Some people who don't quite "get" computers seem to find it really difficult what they should expect from a device. They can have a laptop that needs 5 minutes to boot and a broken mouse that jumps to a random location on the screen once every minute, and the only thing they'll complain about is that Windows doesn't let them select a lot of files properly(because the mouse jumps around like crazy).

The skit in IT Crowd with the "laptop from the exorcist" is sometimes more accurate than one might like.

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Re:Stories and lessons from working with Jeff Bezos on the o... by TeMPOraL on Sunday August 02, 2020 @04:43AM (#24027334)

Exactly this. This also explains why most modern software has so atrocious UX, and why companies can get away producing hardware that can barely lift its own software. It's because non-tech-savvy consumers don't have a point of reference and a mental model to express what's wrong, and also don't have a choice other than to suck it up, or not have a device at all.

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Re:Stories and lessons from working with Jeff Bezos on the o... by solidasparagus on Sunday August 02, 2020 @06:00PM (#24032142)

I actually think this is more of a problem with technical people overvaluing the importance of the technology and not caring enough about what their customer actually needs. They think that the technology is what matters. But technology is just a tool. It really doesn't matter how ugly, janky or suboptimal the technology is if it is a useful enough tool.

People want a cheap device that doesn't ruin the reading experience and has access to all the books they want.

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