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by cable2600·6y ago·view on hn ↗
Even with corporate training the users I worked with couldn't find out how to do things even with a FAQ, HOWTO, F1 Help, and Help Desk helping them out. Web and Desktop apps. Plus they requested features that already were in the programs to be added in the next release. Which means they didn't know how to access them.
2 comments
Someone I know well cannot find and use the volume-control on an iMac despite the icons being noted right on the damned keyboard.

I've spent upwards of a quarter hour in support calls or installfests trying to get someone to open a terminal window and issue 2-3 commands.

I routinely get asked for assistance with such technical tasks as: deleting spam email, restoring sidebars and menus, resetting font sizes, locating a window that's been hidden behind another foreground window. This from otherwise nominally self-sufficient, educated, professional adults.

Though in cases there are sensory and motor impairments involved.

The users themselves consider themselves proficient. Dunning-Kruger strikes again.

Shit, I run our developer services group at my company, meaning we design and manage tools for our own developers.

I am always shocked at how many people respond to emails asking questions that are answered IN BOLD in the first paragraph of the email announcing a new tool or service.

The smartest people can sometimes miss the simplest of details.

That might actually be "banner blindness". If you make something stand out too much, especially in strategic places like the very top of the message, people will subconsciously interpret it as an advertisement, and filter it out before it reaches their awareness.