[GarnetFloride]

I never try to speak to everyone as a tech writer. Tutorials are for people who'd never used our software before, but even then I could assume a certain level of computer literacy, for example they can launch out software or browse to a URL.

I can make How-to's that can assume they had gone through at least one of the tutorials, but even then I put links to the appropriate tutorials so they could refresh or learn if they needed it.

But lately it seems like people are getting more computer illiterate. So how low do you go? I am getting tempted to add a link to some basic computer literacy.

It's kinda like people complaining about Space Launch System, why aren't we using Saturn V or an improved version of it. We have the blueprints and schematics and everything but it appears there's a gap between what's written down there and what's in the textbooks. A lot of in-between experience has evaporated because shop classes and manufacturing were shut down.

I am realizing that a lot of experience was never written down and turned into institutional knowledge that could be used later. The AI companies would love this but it's gone because it was more cost-effective not to.

[EvanAnderson]

I've noticed people's "computer literacy" varies dramatically based on the applicability of whatever they're trying to accomplish to their personal desires versus work.

Being a bit hyperbolic: An update moves one pixel out of place in a line-of-business application and helldesk calls roll in from core-dumping end users who simply can't fathom how to use the software anymore. OTOH, big streaming video or shopping service revamps their UI and the end users seem to have no trouble continuing to use company resources to play videos, shop, etc.

Edit: I have no doubt many large websites have better UX resources, as compared to LoB apps, but user motivation plays a big part.

[bblb]

Streaming sites and shopping carts are used by millions of people, but casually after work, maybe twice a day.

LoBs are used intensively for hours on end in a busy work day, and most people's livelihoods depend on them either directly or indirectly. You grow into them. Muscle memory used to be an actual UI design goal, back when TUI's were the most common LoB interface. Not so much anymore when everything is web app and you click through the horrid UI slowly with your mouse pointer, and repeat this identical task 200 times in a day.

edit: We naturally develop a muscle memory even for the worst LoB. But they are not designed with this in mind. If they were, they wouldn't move that one critical pixel around in a mouse driven app.

[crooked-v]

People are "getting more computer illiterate" because younger people were never taught computer literacy in the first place. We're past the point where children just automatically learn that by using computers, because computers are too reliable to require acquisition of those skills.

Compare to cars. Once upon a time, every car owner had to know how to maintain a car. Nowadays, you can get along perfectly fine having no idea what's going on under the hood.

[GarnetFloride]

But, but, they're digital natives, oh course they know all about computers. /s

I get that. I used to be able to overhaul a VW beetle on the side of the road with regular tools. A couple of years ago my car's transmission's computer went out on the interstate. I couldn't even get a useful error code. The shop down the street didn't have a high enough end device to talk to it. While the dealer was able to figure it out; it took nearly a month to get the replacement part. I'm car semi-literate.

[skissane]

> It's kinda like people complaining about Space Launch System, why aren't we using Saturn V or an improved version of it. We have the blueprints and schematics and everything but it appears there's a gap between what's written down there and what's in the textbooks. A lot of in-between experience has evaporated because shop classes and manufacturing were shut down.

Because it was designed to be manufactured using 1960s components. A lot of the parts it used aren’t even made anymore more, because they’ve been replaced by newer components

The Space Shuttles were progressively upgraded over time to address this, e.g. the early 90s upgrade of their computers which replaced core memory with semiconductor memory. If we’d kept the Saturn V series alive, todays Saturn Vs would have had rather different innards from the ones that flew in the 60s/70s

But this is why “just reuse the Saturn V” design never made sense. You have to redesign so much of it to substitute for unavailable original parts, you might as well just redesign from scratch

[Animats]

> > It's kinda like people complaining about Space Launch System, why aren't we using Saturn V or an improved version of it.

Because the SLS uses left over Space Shuttle engines. Once.

The Space-X approach is to use 33 Raptor engines.

[skissane]

> Because the SLS uses left over Space Shuttle engines. Once.

The reused RS-25s aren’t the same as the ones that flew on the STS-1. STS-1 used the original RS-25, Artemis uses RS-25D, and will in future use the new RS-25E.

In the same way, if Saturn V survived to the present, we wouldn’t be using the original F-1s/J-2s any more, we’d be a using significantly enhanced versions-and the originals would be infeasible to manufacture due to component availability changes

[annzabelle]

I'd be curious for some more anecdotes and analysis of the "more computer illiterate" line. I've tended to be in pretty siloed environments the last 5 years or so, and haven't noticed it myself, but I've heard some pretty bad anecdotes from people who are in education.

[GarnetFloride]

For one company, I made documentation for archive and backup software and I worked closely with tech support. Most customers were sysadmins, and a small subset had no clue what they were doing and they would call us for every little thing even remotely connected to our software. One was a case of an image in a spam email wasn't able to be archived and they were freaking out about the error.

I also worked at a university and that was concerning because some students would just give up whenever anything didn't go right the first time. No troubleshooting skills at all. We were moving from Google to MS and they needed to use Takeout to backup their stuff locally, just in case something happened. But we got a lot of calls because it wasn't ready to download immediately. I've heard it's gotten worse.