What Should People Understand About Computers? 962
counterexample asks: "It seems to me that there aren't very many good books out there that explain to the layman what is really going on with computers. My mother cannot go to the bookstore and pick up a book that will make her understand the strange language that we IT people speak, or why her computer would be susceptible to a virus. So, I intend to write such a book. I have a fair idea of what should be in it (history of the Internet, how computers talk to each other, what a hard drive does, etc.), but I'm interested to see what you all have to say. What do you wish your users knew? What kind of questions are you so sick of answering because you hear them every week? What does the general public think they understand, but really don't?"
After they know about computer internals... (Score:5, Interesting)
Stop using the web for free porn and crack sites (mostly if using ie) firefox and thunderbird replace the normal xp offerings well. You don't need a computer that is all singing and dancing just to use word and msn, or just buy a mac.
Buying a centrino laptop doesn't give you magic access to the internet (legally), stop plugging in usb stuff without the drivers first; erm, and the cdrom is not a damn cup holder!
use linux, openoffice ect...
Everyone ought to know about Alan Turing (Score:1, Interesting)
Everyone, and I mean everyone, ought to know about this wonderful guy
that changed our history forever.
Not so much a content suggestion... (Score:4, Interesting)
Then from there, the next sections would go one step beyond that. So the first part would be to talk about what the computer is, then the second part would talk about how memory works, etc. So at any point if the person gets spooked by any of it they can just stop where they are and have a good amount of knowledge. Make it easy for it to be a gentle progression.
Everything that I learned on /. (Score:2, Interesting)
Do not log in as admin
Have other accounts besides owner or User
Use Firefox
Use Firebird
Use AVG Free
Try not to use Windows :-)
When in doubt-be paraniod!
Patience (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:First thing's first (Score:2, Interesting)
Use it in context, when the user says "my computer has 40 giga bites of memory" I automatically replace with drive space.
I can understand the general publics lack of understanding regarding computers, but its people in the industry that piss me off more.
Case in point, one of my colleagues (developerish) was really baffled why the computer had 248mb of memory and assumed some sort of none standard memory stick.
filesystem (Score:2, Interesting)
I teach a basic web development class, and my students often have a spotty understanding of computers in general.
The one foundational skill that I think cripples computers users, is the understanding of the filesystem. I think the most common source of confusion with computers is "where did it go? it was just here!".
People download and save files to the default location, and then hope it's in "My Documents" somewhere. But they don't know how to navigate to "My Documents" (C:\Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents). When people understand it's a tree and how to find it's trunk, their eyes light up with sheer user power.
application context switching (Score:2, Interesting)
My parents (more often my father) use both Macs and Windows PCs. I'm forever trying (and failing) to explain how Mac OS indicates application context switching. A major problem is that my father doesn't understand that closing a window in Windows kills the application, whereas closing a window in MacOS only closes the window--the application remains running in memory. I see evidence of this same cognitive dissonance with my mother, when a dozen applications are running on her iMac, but only three windows from any of those applications are actually on the desktop or minimized. Naturally performance suffers in this situation. This is especially pertinant on my dad's office computer, because he's running Virtual PC and needs to switch between a PC world and a Mac world. He doesn't really understand that he's changing operating systems, and therefore changing user interface philosophies.
Maybe this concept is a bit too advanced when the average user only has to get used to one environment. It's something I deal with whenever I'm on a service call with my parents though.
frostycellnex
Re:More like where do you draw the line? (Score:2, Interesting)
My perspective is that most adults are task-oriented and not really of the computer-curious type. They want to know enough to get them running -- being able to type up a letter, look up a few things on the web, and maybe figure out how to send/receive pictures of relatives.
Of course you can't jump directly to "surfing the 'net" until they've got the basics down. Give them a general idea of the parts of a computer and what they do. Don't need to go into mega detail about types of RAM, video cards, and motherboards...just enough that they understand what does what.
When I teach the stuff, I try to organize the hardware into Input/Process/Output to give them a bit of perspective. Keyboards, mice, and other input devices -- then all the processing stuff inside the box, then output devices like monitors, printers, and speakers.
From there you go into UI and the common features of just about anything there. Titlebar, menubar, scrollbar, etc. Then you go heavy on mousing and a little on the keyboarding -- what the keys are good for. Go HEAVY on the mousing. I always stress that for most users, this is like learning the alphabet...you can't move on to sentences and paragraphs unless you have the basics down.
After that, you can branch onto the different task-oriented topics. Internet would include history, a bit on structure, very brief on maybe protocols (just enough so they know the importance of standards), search engines, etc. Here you can also talk about security and various things to watch out for with a networked computer. I once had a more net-savvy crowd and I branched into more "social" issues like censorship, anonymity, file sharing, yadda yadda. Though it was fun, it was a specific audience that knew enough to contribute to the discussion.
Then you've got word processing where you have to stress the concept of highlighting/selecting things they want to work with. You've got to highlight text if you want to format it. Compare it to the old typewriters to establish familiarity, and think up cute little paradigms to help them understand what's going on. This isn't the place for emacs and vi either.
So in the end you pour a little, and pour a little more if they want more info. In the end, it's about getting them started, giving them enough confidence so they don't fear the damn things (but fear it enough so they don't go around doing stupid things with it), then letting them know that if they're really interested, there's oodles more information out there.
Good luck.
Re:Know how to drive but not where they are. (Score:3, Interesting)
No, what they need is a machine that's reliable so that if something goes REALLY wrong, they don't feel stupid about calling a computer technician or taking it to a repair desk to fix it.
e.g.:
My Computer is Broken! When When MS Word fails to open.
MS Word shouldn't be so darn fickle. There are hundreds of ways to break it, that will easily put a user out of commission. My favorite? When Windows corrupts the preferences and decides that the Word window should now be located at +100000 by +100000 pixels. (Thank God Microsoft finally fixed that one.)
Windows Sucks! When the system wont Boot because the computer hardware failed.
The Internet Is Down! When Windows somehow lost all its drives and fails boot.
Users are used to Windows failing. Ergo, the computer must not boot because of Windows. If faults were rare, the computer would go to a repair center and be fixed up quickly and cheaply.
My Computer is slow, I need a faster one! When there are 1000s of spyware apps running
Such programs need to be properly dealt with. Under OS X it can be very hard to install spyware. The primary method of "hiding" it requires sudo permissions. While the user can be tricked into giving up his password, it's much more difficult and bound to be far less legal.
The secondary method would involve installing a program that the user can ALWAYS see. And if they can see it, they can kill it. Ergo, not too much spyware on Macs at the moment. (We'll see if spyware manufacturers figure out ways around this. It would be interesting to see Apple's response.)
Re:More like where do you draw the line? (Score:3, Interesting)
I personally like getting out for a nice walk down to the library every now and then. However, if every time I went out to make this walk I ended up taking wrong turn after wrong turn, ended up getting completely lost to the point I couldn't find my way home again, and just as I'm about to give up and call someone to drive me home I broke my leg, then I might stop trying to walk to the library.
For those who can get to the library with no trouble, it's a great resource - but to those who can't get to it, it's of no use at all.
Golly gee, I hope my analogy isn't too obscure or subtle...
Anyways, that is sort of an extreme example. Most of the public just takes one or two wrong turns on their way to the library. They eventually get there, but it takes them about a half hour longer than it should. Sure it's good exercise, but it's still annoying as hell.
Does that mean we need to redo our entire network of roads, sidewalks and paths? Of course not. But, there are a lot of people who could benefit from a few more maps and lessons in how to read and use them.
Re:After they know about computer internals... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:First thing's first (Score:4, Interesting)
I started asking them about the computers and the sales lady though I was some average user who thinks it all smoke and magic inside the box. She was saying the cpu (computer itself) had a a gforce4 proccesor 80 gig of memory a 10-100k modem and they could UPLOAD Windows Office (?WinXP?) onto it for an extra $25.
People have actualy taken the public's misunderstanding of computers and turned it into a selling point. Chances are, people call things the wrong way because it was presented to them by someone trying to scam them. I remember taking a computer to the shop to get a cdrom replaced once when I didn't have the time. The tech told me it needed a "plug and play card" because it is the reason the old cdrom quit (not because I spilled coffee (or beer) on it when I droped a cup.). I ended up spending $40 just to get my systems back and install a CDrom from somewere else myself.
Re:More like where do you draw the line? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is also the place where your kids learn to build bombs and shoot guns. According to my local TV station it seems that society went for years and years without murder or bombs but since this internet thing... woo! crimes just everywhere and what motivated all these people to suddenly apply their high school chemistry knowledge? The Internet of course.
They also said that playing video games is bad for your health but it seems that watching TV is OK since they didn't mention it.
Re:Know how to drive but not where they are. (Score:2, Interesting)
Stuff gets installed to the HD because
1: it's faster
A fast RAM disk on a piece of plastic would be at least 100x faster than a CD. Plus CDs are error prone, and easy to copy.
2: you can patch it
OK, make the chip writeable. They do it with firmware all the time.
3: Most people only have 1 CD drive - want to copy-paste from photoshop to office? Want your CAD app running whilst you write the documentation? Isolating apps from each other sucks.
That is another reason why the CD idea is dumb. The apps running off of the chip could be a simple USB drive. People carry them all the time that have apps to use on public machines that are not installed on the public machine. Stuff like a good web browser, putty, or whatever.
This model is only useful for independent apps, i.e. games. Even then I prefer them on a PC so I have mods, can use skype at the same time, etc.
That is what I'm talking about. Things like games, CAD, productivity applications like word processors, audio and video apps. Anything in the $50 range and up.
Re:More like where do you draw the line? (Score:5, Interesting)
You can't teach them enough to be fully competent. If you teach them a little, you just make them dangerous, able to screw up on a much more profound level.
Solution? Teach them as little as possible.
This goes against my grain. I love teaching people things. But whenever I show someone how to do something, inevitably, destruction ensues.
How many user problems arise from them trying to install software? Solution: make it so they can't install software. Give them access to system files? Not if you don't want them to throw them away later, out of boredom. Let them configure their own apps? Are you out of your MIND?
I used to work in my university computer lab. When you logged into a computer, it would build your system profile for you, from stored settings (not thin client, mind you, it pulled down everything you needed and wrote it on the local harddrive). Applications were served from central servers. Files were saved in your serverside directory.
When you logged off, it went through and ran a cleanup app that expunged every trace of your presence, checked all the system files, and replaced any that had been modified in ANY WAY. Five minutes later, a perfectly clean machine was ready for another user. The only real problem we had with it was that it was rough as hell on the harddrive, so the replacement rate was pretty high.
Every place I've worked since then, I've longed for that level of control. No viruses, no wierd errors. Worst case scenario, you replace the harddrive and run a build script.
Re:Understanding is over-rated (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think you need to understand those things, really. As long as you know you can't drive your car off a cliff, or go to the store without taking off your e-brake, or not to drive with your eyes closed, etc., you'll probably do fine. For laundry soap, as long as you know how much to put in, you're ok. If you can read the labels for dry cleaning, it'll work out. Women...well, try and find one that makes sense to you.
My point is, maybe the average person doesn't need to understand exactly how a computer works. The whole transistors - logic gates - boolean logic type stuff isn't really necessary. However, there's a lot of users who don't know you shouldn't connect to the internet without a firewall. Or you shouldn't pull the cord while it'd defragging the harddrive. Or that IE is not the internet. Or why your computer slows down when you open every program you've got. Or why the sony rootkit thing is a big deal. Or why you shouldn't trust anyone on the internet (you know what I mean). All those kind of things can be explained without going into the nitty-gritty detail.
As a tool, computers are rather flawed - the mere fact that they break down so easily is proof of that.
Take a car. Don't change the oil, don't rotate the tires, don't fill them regularly, don't fill the radiator, don't replace the brakepads, don't get a tune up, fill it with the lowest octane fuel you can find, drive recklessly, and you'll get a car that breaks down pretty easily. You take care of a computer, it'll last. You don't, it won't.
Re:More like where do you draw the line? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cars and Computers (Score:5, Interesting)
True story: I was in a major computer store when a perplexed looking man, probably about 60, asked me if I knew anything about the USB keys they had. He wanted to store some letters on it (probably saved from Word.. didn't ask), and his outlook contacts list.
I started with 'well a 16mb is cheap and will do what you need I think' but he looked perplexed.. time for an analogy. '1 megabyte is about 1 floppy, so 16 megabytes is 16 floppies'. It was like watching a light switch on - the analogy had allowed him to make the connection between something he knew (floppy disks) to something he didn't know (what a megabyte was). His next question was, 'ah, so that one is the size of 256 floppies'.. and he was well on his way to making an intelligent buying choice.
Some history is good, it explains things (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Basic File Management (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to work woth a woman (mid-60s) who printed out every email she got, and stored them in a filing cabinet under the sender's name, in date order. Occasionally she'd call us in the tech department to ask us to help her find emails she remembered, but couldn't locate in her filing cabinet. After a couple of such calls, with the blessing of the head of IT, we sat down with her and told her that we could only help her if she was using electronic mail. Not filing cabinets.
It took a few weeks of training, but we finally got her to understand how the search function worked in her email. She made great use of this, and was finally able to become productive, because she could figure out where things were....in her filing cabinet. We called that a success, since she stoped calling us about her "email" problems.
Re:More like where do you draw the line? (Score:1, Interesting)
Give them a desktop with 4 or 5 icons on it (email, internet, office, files, shutdown) and they will be happy forever. Hide them from all the stuff under the hood. If they want to know more then they will go out and discover it on their own.
Hide them from the bells and whistles. The fact that my grandma can hit the start menu, poke around, and then call me an hour later telling me her computer won't start anymore scares me (it doesn't anymore though because I got her fixed up with the configuration I just mentioned above), and I'm sure for most of us who have done tech support that this is the case that is also the most likely to happen.
What do everyday people need to know about computers? Nothing. The idea of the "computer" needs to be transparent to them; they should only see a "familiar tool" . My mom doesn't need to know anything about computers other than I do similarly about cars. I get in it to go places and I put in gas to make it not die. THATS ALL. If anything goes wrong I take it to a friend or a repair shop and let them do the "magic" and then I happily go on my way none the wiser.
If you're really going to do this book then I suggest that you hide the bells and whistles (complex settings, geek speak, etc) from them because it will end up confusing them. You need only imagine yourself as doing tech support when you say to someone "Ok, use the mouse and click the 'X' in the upper right hand corner" to be shortly told "I am and nothings happening" and then you spend the next 3 minutes figuring out that they were right-clicking and not left-clicking. The layperson's reasoning for computers is different than what a geek's is, meaning you need to revert to the basics: short sentences and very few "new words".
Also, plan for the future. Think of the young people who live on modding their mySpace accounts and whatnot. My sister can work a computer just fine but she is no where NEAR a geek, infact she is quite the opposite. When doing tech support I always heard people saying "My 10 year old knows how to work this thing better than I do." The layperson of today is not the layperson of tomorrow. If you're going to explain things in a book then make sure that you do only the basics (and draw the line there). If people need to know more then they will naturally grow curious and go off and find things out on their own, otherwise why waste your breath?
Analogies "b" great. (Score:3, Interesting)
A sudoku puzzle, when complete, contains more digits than it does when unsolved. Yet there is only one solution to a given sudoku puzzle. So the starting state, which contains far less information, implies a larger volume of information which is unique to that starting state. Thus you can express the outcome of 81 digits using only some small subset of it, and applying rules to retrieve the rest.
I'm a goddamn genius!