Re:The Perks of a High-Documentation, Low-Meeting Work Culture
by yamtaddle on Tuesday November 22, 2022 @05:57PM
(#33712734)
There were tons of users in the 90s who didn't have a clue how to use a computer—I mean even at a very rudimentary level—and just followed memorized or written-down steps, getting lost almost immediately if anything went wrong. Luckily for them, software was way less likely to throw up "what's new" modals seemingly at random, interrupting whatever they were trying to do, back then :-/ (edit: or to "improve" [pointlessly re-arrange] their UI while the user was away from the computer, for that matter)
If there are more of them now it's probably because computer use expanded 100 fold since then, at least, and the largely self-selected 90s users of the Web, especially, tended to have greater-than-average interest in learning computer crap, so a high proportion of new users were the can't-or-don't-want-to-learn sort. In the 90s a computer still might not be the centerpiece of an office worker or middle manager's desk, and most folks used computers very little at home, if they even had one (data I'm seeing indicates % of households in the US with a computer only hit 50% in 2000).
If there are more of them now it's probably because computer use expanded 100 fold since then, at least, and the largely self-selected 90s users of the Web, especially, tended to have greater-than-average interest in learning computer crap, so a high proportion of new users were the can't-or-don't-want-to-learn sort. In the 90s a computer still might not be the centerpiece of an office worker or middle manager's desk, and most folks used computers very little at home, if they even had one (data I'm seeing indicates % of households in the US with a computer only hit 50% in 2000).