> I think one of the reasons I find computers relatively easy is that I compulsively read whatever you put in front of me.

Telling my mom this is what eventually got her to read error messages instead of closing them. She had to learn not to close them and then, separately, learn to also read them. I'll admit there were times where I was on the verge of crying out of frustration, begging her to "please just read the screen" because she would leave the error, but then still not actually read it and go with:

Me: "What does it say?"

Mom: "I don't know."

So glad things are better, now.

This is an astute observation.

I also didn't know that other kids read cereal boxes like that... I thought it was just me!

Or even just signs when driving down the highway. I can't help but read everything.

It took me the longest time to realize that for some people reading is something that doesn't happen until they choose to do it.

Then says "hey hon, It won't let me save."

I see the error. Can't access disk. Immediately I think, well I replaced the HDD with and SSD, so that's probably not the problem. I look at the folder she's accessing, everything looks normal. It shows a bunch of other files in it. I go up a folder and back into the folder, and everything looks great, click Save - > same error again.

Finally I go to my computer -> and path my way back all the way into the same folder, click Save. It works and she says thank you!

And I'm thinking, what the fuck that shouldn't have fixed it.. walking away dumbfounded. No problem since, there's nothing wrong with the disk she's been using the computer for days since. It was literally a bug in word's specialized save dialog.

I see alot of apps using hardcoded paths since they create a "downloads" folder and save stuff to it.

Alot of bugs are exposed in a non US-eng install.

I have broken so many computers in my life and repaired them that I am not very worried about pressing the wrong thing because I am confident I can recover from a mistake. Someone who has never repaired their own computer runs an unknown (to them) risk of being wrong that would force them to take their computer to an actual store and the hard drive probably being erased without asking.

Specifically, I was once trying to help a CS professor register a new domain name. This was at some low-cost registrar and there were 6 pages of upsells on the way to checkout. For whatever reason, he was definitely taking his time reading the entire pitch, and eventually I had to step in and click 'next' several times. "No, you don't need a new virus scanner as part of your domain name purchase. No you don't need a company to submit your new domain name to search engines. No you don't need SEO services. ..."

I'm going through a contract-heavy legal process right now, and it is amazing how strongly the agents/lawyers/etc. involved in the process clearly expect me to just sign without reading. Obviously they're not pressuring me not to read it, but the implied expectations of time/effort that it should take is much less than necessary.

Edit to add: also, I've seen this in more places than just health care.

I complained and was ignored in the same way people are ignored when they complain about the wait in the ER or ask how much treatment will cost.

For people who are not comfortable with computers, they just see an error message and expect it to be something that they cannot handle.

Part of the problem is how error messages are presented. A lot of software uses tools like modal dialog boxes to present everything from "a file with that name already exists" to "the file cannot be written". The former can easily be handled. The latter may involve a call to technical support (and part of the reason for that is the ambiguity of the error message).

"Hi"

?

"I have an error"

What error?

"It won't compile"

Whats the error message?

"Function lib.X not found"

Did you import the library?

"No"

Import it

"It worked"

Most everyone seems to be trained to ignore error messages, regardless of background. Expecting them to go the next step and google the error is a lost cause, regardless of background. Even 5yr devs sometimes need to be taught this... I'm still not clear why, but it feels like people are being trained to use computers this way -- i just can't figure out when, why and who's doing this mis-training

A big frustration of mine is sites/apps that bury their support info. If I need support, I'd like support. Expose your FAQ to me, point me towards some forums, but don't bury the actual contact info somewhere like the footer, or worse, omit it completely. If I type my problem into the supplied form and the chatbot that opens up asks me to type that info again (often after a redirect where the session info gets overwritten so that I can't even copy-paste my already written text) I'm much more likely to be unnecessarily rude to the support person in the other side... Assuming it's a person and not the aforementioned chatbot.

You have no idea how many times I've seen the RDP certificate warning: "Click here to never show this again."

Nope, no. Nobody but me ticks that checkbox. NOBODY. It's infuriating.

That, and the VMware vSphere first-time tab that "explains what a cluster is". Click here to close and never show again.

Nope. Every time I look over the shoulder of a dedicated, full-time, VMware-certificate ESXi cluster administrator... there it is. The certificate warning. The first-time popup. Every time.

In my mind, I know I really should manually grab a copy of the cert from work so I'm actually certain I'm not being MITM'd, but on the other hand I know the likelihood of that being the case is pretty darn low and I'm lazy so I don't. But I make sure that warning keeps popping up because I don't want to forget that I'm doing something dangerous.

The easy way is decently secure: if you tick the checkbox, it memorises the certificate serial number for you, the same as if you had manually trusted a self-signed cert. Any change to the certificate will show the warning again. This is comparable to trusting an SSH certificate the first time you connect to a host with Putty.

The best way is to issue RDP Certificates from an Enterprise PKI: They're free, you never get warning popups ever again, and they're secure.

Your method means that if the certificate changes (due to a MitM attack), you won't notice. The warning looks the same with a new certificate as an old certificate that you didn't choose to trust. You're 100% vulnerable and you've both hidden an a warning for an actual attack and also trained yourself to ignore all such warnings.

Then it should say so.

"Click here to never show this again"—never show for this certificate? For this connection? For any connection?

Be clear and specific, even if it takes three more words.