Why Consumers Hate Us
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001100.html
It's not usually an all-encompassing kind of hate. Nor is it typically
some form of "I hate you so much I won't have anything to do with
you!" category of hate. And rarely is it really a "fear of evil" model
of hate.
No, it's much more of a simmering, situationally specific kind of
anger. It's mostly (but by no means exclusively) directed at large
Internet technology firms, and by proxy at the technologists (like
many of you, and certainly me) who either directly or indirectly
create, deploy, influence, or otherwise impact the Web and its
services as experienced by ordinary, mostly non-techie consumers --
who increasingly must use our products whether they really want to or
not, at the risk of being left far behind.
Perhaps part of the problem is that most technologists -- coders,
SREs, managers, and onward along the long tail of associated job
descriptions -- often don't need to deal with users' complaints
directly. They may see studies and distilled reports, the most common
user comments and questions, and other relevant data, but mostly they
never interact with ordinary consumers -- ordinary users -- on a one
to one basis, except perhaps when trying to assist a concerned friend
or relative (which indeed, can be an eye-opening experience as far as
that goes).
For better or worse I receive unsolicited queries looking for help
every day. Typically these users have tried the formal support
channels and forums -- and have either been unsuccessful at finding
answers in the former or ridiculed by other persons in the latter.
They start searching around and find my name in association with
various articles I've written, or my frequent discussion of technical
issues on radio and other venues. In desperation they send me
emails -- or often they call me directly on the phone.
Often these queries relate one way or another to Google, simply
because I've written so much on that topic over the years (and, full
disclosure, until quite recently I was consulting to them as well),
but Google is by no means the only firm for which these questions pour
in.
Obviously, I'm under no obligation to respond to any of these. But it
is my pleasure to do so on a gratis basis, because so many of these
persons -- yes, actual living human beings every one -- are so
desperate for someone to talk to them about the technical issues that
we -- the aforementioned technologists -- tend to assume are so
obvious, but that seem so utterly impenetrable to so many users.
"Losers." That's the corruption of the word "users" that you hear all
too frequently from technical folks when referring to the persons who
actually depend on their products and services. It's usually bantered
about in half-joking way, but the essential arrogance that it reveals
is often all too real.
Sometimes it's just overall disdain for users in general. Sometimes
it's disdain for the minority of users (who can still be enormous in
absolute numbers at scale) who are deemed not worth bothering with if
they can't "keep up" with the designated pace of change, or who have
particular special concerns or needs that just seem like too much
bother to address, even at the group rather than individual level.
To be sure, supporting millions or even billions of users is no small
or inexpensive feat. And the inclination can be strong to treat
non-paying users as a "lower class" for support -- even though they
may be responsible for bringing in very significant revenue through
ads and other mechanisms.
I won't try to catalogue here the long list of insights I've gained
from the many discussions I've had with users -- not losers! -- over
recent years. But just a few points may give some sense of the overall
picture in key respects.
First, much of what we assume is obvious to all users actually is not.
There's the old joke about the tech support guy who told a caller they
could press any key on their keyboard to proceed. "I can't find the
'any' key!" comes the presumably hilarious reply.
This isn't as far from the truth as one might think. We've been so
successful at "hiding" the workings of our applications that many
users are completely lost when something goes wrong. You might be
surprised how often I've told users to "start their Web browser" and
they tell me they don't know what a browser is.
How can this be? Most people care about information and services at
sites and pages, not so much the software that display them. They may
have shortcuts that bring these sites up directly from their desktops,
or they may use app launchers that even further obscure the process.
So it shouldn't come as any additional surprise that many users have
no clue as to which browser they're running, don't notice if their
search bar or omnibox has been hijacked by an "intruding" service
without informed permission, and so on.
We forget that most people aren't clairvoyant and may not have 20/20
vision. We pour endless energy into user interface design. But we
still end up deploying obscure icons and "hidden" menus, both often as
mysterious as the Sphinx, unless one thinks to mouse over the icon (in
which case you might get a useful "tooltip" -- or not) or hover over
the appropriate secret symbol (or perhaps empty space!) to make an
otherwise hidden menu visible.
In the interests of "pretty" interface design and text display, it's
become the fashion to render often important text in low contrast
fonts that are pretty much a slap in the face of anyone with aging or
otherwise declining or limited vision -- and that decline often starts
by the time we reach our 20s. Sometimes it seems like UI designers are
getting kickbacks from ophthalmologists and aspirin manufacturers.
And when it comes to hardware, users are even more confused and
peeved. These are often not inexpensive devices, but forced
obsolescence and feature "hobbling" cycles are growing ever shorter.
Smartphone buyers find themselves stuck in short order with devices
that can't or don't receive updates, even for important
security-related bugs -- often involving security issues that nobody
responsible is even willing to proactively and directly inform users
about, even when simple precautions and workarounds are actually
available.
Consumers buy set-top boxes or expensive "smart" TVs only to find that
support for key features is withdrawn within a couple of years because
nobody wants to update them anymore, or necessary APIs have been
summarily terminated.
The fact that many of these users could (given the money) buy new
expensive smartphones or relatively inexpensive "plug in stick"
set-top replacements isn't the point.
The point is that people hate being "bullied" -- and "technological
bullying" is a very real phenomenon indeed.
It's utterly unreasonable to expect that consumers will possess
understanding of these complicated technical ecosystems. "Who is
responsible for updating the phone? The service provider? The
manufacturer? The carrier?" "Why can't I view videos anymore on a TV
only a few years old, when most people keep TVs in use for around 10
years?" "How come nobody told me that an API ("Hey, Lauren, what the
hell is an API?") would be so quickly cut off?
Perhaps the most important point of all is that the effect of all this
is much like the proverbial death of a thousand cuts. No single item
alone is likely to be a death blow, but by so often essentially
treating many of our users like jerks, we are gradually poisoning a
well of goodwill that will be very difficult to ever cleanse, and in
the process we hand ammunition to our adversaries, many of whom would
very much like to bring us down or otherwise control the "eggheads" in
their midsts.
We don't need nor expect every user to love us and our technologies.
But at a minimum we can strive for them not to hate us -- and perhaps
to even respect us a bit.
Ultimately, it's our choice.
Be seeing you.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
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