Getting Back to the Basics

I was reminded boldly today that what I think everyone knows about computers, everyone DOES NOT KNOW. I was providing some support for an individual and was helping them navigate around in Windows and I was shocked at the amount of detail I had to provide to get my message across.

After my initial shock that a simple command like “right-clicking” wasn’t obvious to someone I realized I had to slow down and communicate as visually as possible to get my point across.

I then had to explain items like using the Start > Run command.

We then moved onto what to look for when searching for “Properties” of a file and to look for tabs to get to different areas of the interface.

There was even a little bit of time spent on the discussion of file path structure and the differences between backslashes \\ and forward slashes //.

All-in-all the exercise was good for me. It was an eye-opener to look at things very differently and try to understand how different users may look at applications or interfaces I may create. It got me thinking though, what does the average computer user really know?

Image: sxc.hu