no amount of documentation can save users from themselves - eviltoast
  • fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    Hmm … Better pigeon hole clients into only using the teabag.

    “Why can’t I put the label in the water?!”

  • calabast@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Smart developer: let’s make the label an 8 inch square so it won’t fit in any mug.

    • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
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      3 months ago

      Huge waste of material on the label.

      Since the labels are larger, the boxes for those tea bags will need to be larger too. That incurs in additional waste of material and storage space.

      People working in markets selling those tea bags will complain. Now their boxes don’t fit in the aisle alongside boxes with tea bags of other brands.

      Customers will find it clunky and convoluted. Some will understand why the dev did it, and get angry - because from their PoV it’ll sound like the dev is saying “I assume that you’re a muppet, unable to distinguish the label from the bag”.

      And some will still do like others said: use a larger pot, fold the label, etc. Defeating the purpose of the change.

      There are plenty situations where you can be smart. This is not one of them, stick to standards and document it properly. “This is the bag, it goes in. This is the label, it goes out.”

      (Not that it changes much for me. I’m still ripping the tea bag apart and mixing the contents with my yerba mate. Unexpected use case!)

    • smeg@feddit.uk
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      3 months ago

      Just get rid of the label altogether. I’m always suspicious when a teabag has a string on it.

  • Blackout@kbin.run
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    3 months ago

    I design optics and I’ve seen a return request because they “couldn’t see the target” and included photos to show what they meant. The customer installed it backwards and didn’t bother trying the other way.

  • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    And that’s how an iPhone with an interface that even a toddler can figure out sold a few billion units.

    • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      As someone who’s used and uses both for work and isn’t a fanboy of either, sorry but apple does not have an easy to learn interface. It seems like every single choice they made was done to just be different from the alternative, more often than not to the detriment of the user. If they lock people in to how their ecosystem works low tech people can’t easily change.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        If they lock people in to how their ecosystem works low tech people can’t easily change.

        Other people can just mimic the iPhone interface. That’s basically what Android did.

        The real difficulty of switching to another device from Apple is the multi-year contract that the phone companies try to get you on.

        • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 months ago

          Back in 2012 apple won a UI patent and we know how those megacorps do. No idea to what extent but that sorta stops any big contenders on copying them. The multi year contracts are a meme from the past but it’s the same sort of people who aren’t techliterate enough to learn a new UI, that keep with the contracts.

            • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              3 months ago

              They sorta are, plenty of options for cheap quality untilited phone plans out there even with international included and very few people actually need a state of the art 1k phone to make payments on.

              Don’t get me wrong, I’m not policing how people should spend their money. All I’m saying is that plans are from the past and don’t need to exist, like faxes.

    • sheogorath@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      At what cost, though? I thought the generations after the millennials would be more tech-literate. But after seeing Gen Zs around me at home and at work, things are just regressing.

      • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        It was inevitable. We took a mishmash of things that kinda worked together with a patchwork of software and shoved it into a streamlined define with a custom made interface to tie it all together. One of those things pushes the user to learn more, and it’s not the finished and polished product.

      • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        Can’t really blame them either, it was our generation that dropped the ball in making sure they were more tech literate than us. Not that I have kids but still.

        • asyncrosaurus@programming.dev
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          3 months ago

          Nah, our generation had to tinker with shit to get it working. Kids these days have it easy, which is good from a user perspective, but fails to train them how any of it actually works at a deeper level.

          No one has to install a device driver anymore.

        • orangeboats@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          The modern electronic devices are far more railroaded than it was back in the day tho.

          Want to download an application? There’s the App Store. No need to download random .exes from sketchy websites (and learn what a “computer virus” is the hard way)

          Downloaded a picture? It’s instantly inside your gallery. Back then we needed to find a folder called “Download” or “My Documents” using something called the Explorer!

          iPhone and Android made a lot of things dumber and easier to take in, but I feel like it had a detrimental effect on digital literacy.

          • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            3 months ago

            A little. Hands on parenting is what they need. I made sure my baby brother is tech literate when my mom is 100 percent not. He just graduated highschool this year. Sure some of the blame is on tech but kids don’t know how to shit in a toilet either and parents make damn sure they learn as quickly as possible.

          • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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            3 months ago

            Want to download an application? There’s the App Store. No need to download random .exes from sketchy websites (and learn what a “computer virus” is the hard way)

            We’ve had that for years, it used to just be called apt-get. Though I’ll admit a GUI software center is nice when I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for

  • leftzero@lemmynsfw.com
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    3 months ago

    A proper engineer would make the tag absorbent and use the principle of capillarity to transfer the water to the bag (and the other way round once tea flavoured) to cover this case.

    Users can’t avoid being stupid, but a proper engineer should be able to cover all cases.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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        3 months ago

        And also the existence of a perfectly insulative, yet durable and long-lasting sheath for the bag and string. I realise it’s just an analogy, and in cyberspace that sort of thing is trivial, but with real matter it’s beyond a pipe dream.

    • TheSlad@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      No, that complicates things way too much. Simplicity in design is beauty. A real engineer would recognize the tag on the string not only as a point a confusion, but also a superfluous feature. Simply remove it. The end user will have to use a spoon supplied by themselves to remove the teabag, but thats their problem. At least there is actually tea in the cup at that point.

    • OfCourseNot@fedia.io
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      3 months ago

      Or the pg tips approach: ‘d’ya know what? No more tag or thread for ya now you’ve got to fish and pinch the baggy out of your scolding tea ya wanker’.

    • nexussapphire@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      So you’re saying it should wick the water from the cup to the table like an oil lantern. That seems like a good way to have half of your cup on the table.😂

      If you get it to travel up the string, gravity will definitely do the rest. It seems like such a passive aggressive way to design a product and I’m all for it.

  • nexussapphire@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    I can be an idiot every once and a blue moon. Thank you to anyone who put literally everything a manual just in case someone is braindead and isn’t afraid to rtfm.

    To be honest it’s just after I’ve spent 10 hours on something fairly complicated and new to me. I suddenly can’t think for myself anymore. It literally becomes a chore to do the simplest shit sometimes.

      • nexussapphire@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        I do appreciate it, I know I’m no idiot.

        To be honest, I kinda wish some projects came with API manuals. I understand it’s not a priority in an open source project with limited resources.

        It would be nice to use a python based ml tool without passing commands through it via shell. People do it, I just don’t have the time or experience to analyze a complex project like ML voice synthesis.

  • chirospasm@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    If you have access to any kind of UX and UI folks, you automagicallly get a leg up on this, y’all. It is goddamn amazing.

    Single dev on a personal project? Go find someone in the community who has an eye for design or hit up a design forum. Work has you on a project with only two other devs and limited resources? Ask for a favor from the UX team down the hall.

    We are all tryna make good experiences out here. Let us avoid getting ‘teabagged.’

    • ikidd@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Basically you have to hide all choice behind a settings page. Think of a cattle chute that only let’s them go one direction to the bolt gun. Wait…

  • Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Send multiple all user emails stating which end to put in the water. People still call the Help Desk or email you directly, your response is forwarding them the email, they complained that it’s not convenient or they get too many emails or don’t have time for emails.

    You send documentation and place it on the portal. they complain it’s overly complicated, so you add screenshots with which end to put in the water. They still mess it up and complain about lack of instruction.

    You schedule 30 minute courses, 3 times a day, every day of the week and spam out notifications to sign up. You get a total of 12 people the first 2 weeks, most of which figured it out on their own at some point but thought it was mandatory, or that there were high level secrets or Tips n Tricks you were gonna teach. When the education period ends, you still get people complaining that the times weren’t convenient enough for them because they work 2nd shift or weekends.

    You schedule another 2 weeks of classes, after hours and on weekends. 2 people show up, but not the ones who bitched about it.

    Despite everything, your boss still sings you on your review didn’t meet the needs of the organization with this rollout

    • Zink@programming.dev
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      3 months ago

      Oof, I’m not in IT thank goodness, but I still feel this in my bones. I’ve had to write plenty of instructions for in-house trained users though, and it seemed just as bad. I can’t imagine what it’s like with real randos.

      I’ve definitely seen some of these “please let us help you” getting sent around. And even in completely different types of organizations I’ve seen time and time again how the obnoxious entitled complainers don’t even show up.

      • Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        They’re just serial complainers. Even if you walk around their department with a laptop to give them 5 minute instruction, no matter when you do it it’s always inconvenient to them. Some people exist solely to complain about shit

        • Zink@programming.dev
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          3 months ago

          Yeah, unfortunately a huge chunk of the population is so negative that complaining about the world is pretty much how they interact with it. That and they define themselves by the things they don’t like.

  • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
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    3 months ago

    Speaking as a user (I’m not a programmer even if I’m often loafing around here):

    Left is not “optimistic” but “assumptive” - blame the dev and the user.
    Right is not “pessimistic” but “diligent” - blame the user.

    But the worst type doesn’t appear in this pic: they’d put a ball of chicken wire around the label so it’s physically impossible to put it in the hot water.

    • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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      3 months ago

      I’m not a programmer yet even if I’m often loafing around here

      Fixed that for you…

      Join us on the dark side. We have cookies.

      • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
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        3 months ago

        We’re talking about the worst dev, right? “No, chrust me. I have a vizhun about how the tea bag should be.”

        Incidentally it’s the same answer that he’d give to people annoyed who neither need nor want the chicken wire ball.

  • VeganPizza69 Ⓥ@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago
    if ( parameters.teaMass <= TEA_BAG_WEIGHT ) { 
        return "Error: incorrect input. Check if tea bag was inserted correctly into water container."
     }