Medieval Tech Support

Saul Griffith sent me a pointer to a hilarious video about medieval tech support for the newly introduced book. It’s thought-provoking as well as funny. While comparing the ease of use of books to scrolls might seem a casual jape, it strikes me how similarly trivial are the many questions that unsophisticated users have about newly introduced technology.

I remember back in the early days of the commercial internet, when my friends at UUnet, one of the first ISPs, told me that they had a white board where they kept the daily count of the “DQ” (THE Dumb Question) of the day, which was, “I heard about this internet thing, and I went out and bought a modem. Do I need a computer as well?” We also heard stories about people using removable disk drives as cup holders, and mice as foot pedals (a la a sewing machine.) But even apart from these egregious examples, I watch unsophisticated users struggle with computer programs sometimes just because they don’t know where to look on the screen, or what to look for.

Attuning yourself to the gap between what experienced users take for granted and what novices find difficult is, of course, the secret of effective technical writing. And for new users, no one is better at that than David Pogue, NY Times columnist, Emmy-award winning TV journalist, and creator and author of the bestselling Missing Manual book series. David just announced that “‘It’s All Geek to Me,’ the six-episode TV series I wrote and hosted that was supposed to air in April…has finally been blessed with a firm broadcast schedule: Friday nights at 8 p.m., beginning May 18. Each week, they’ll air one new episode and one re-run, on two channels: Discovery HD and The Science Channel.”

Most of the readers of this blog wouldn’t likely think of themselves as the audience for David’s show, but I’ll bet that it’s really worth watching, just to pay attention to what David notices people struggling with and explains for them. Designing great computer products requires understanding your user, and if you’re aiming any of your products at beginners, David is a brilliant person to learn from. (Studying his books will provide similar insight. He’s great at knowing what needs to be explained, and where people get stuck in the course of some process that was crystal clear to the product’s designer, but opaque to the customer.)

But I digress. Go watch that video. You’ll love it.