this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
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230
"How to help someone use a computer.", a guide from 1996 (pages.gseis.ucla.edu)
submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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A friend shared a post from someone else that was talking about this article. I've quoted the text from that post below:

This is a 1996 guide on how to help someone use a computer. It's strikingly resonant with 'how to be a parent', or really 'how to help anyone with anything'. A nice example of "the universal within the particular"

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

That's pretty much exactly it. Windows as a whole is now catering to the lowest common denominator. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially as more and more of the world population are adopting computers (or being required to adopt them, for work). But in trying to make things easier for beginners they're damaging some of the tools that we experts are used to. It's a give-and-take sort of situation, and I'm not as livid about it as some professionals seem to be, but the fact remains that Windows is situating itself to be used by... idiots sounds rude, so we'll say "beginners". Folks that don't know where or how to find what they're looking for. Web search in the start menu, and Cortana-now-Copilot are two prime examples of that - tools that "nobody" really needed in Windows but that help someone who has absolutely zero idea what they're doing get things done, even if poorly or inefficiently.

I'm not upset at their attempt to add accessibility to Windows, but I do wish they wouldn't make their existing product worse in the attempt.