Even though our computers are now better than 15 years ago, they still malfunction 11%–20% of the time, a new study from the University of Copenhagen and Roskilde University concludes. The researchers behind the study therefore find that there are major gains to be achieved for society by rethinking the systems and involving users more in their development.
  • friend_of_satan@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1111·
    6 months ago

    Do they include “fighting with anti patterns and dark patterns” as broken? It’s pretty insane how much misalignment there is between what most people want their computers to do and what the companies want people to do, which seems to largely be “look at ads literally everywhere”.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.zipEnglish
          610·
          6 months ago

          Well, because it’s still enormously complex and growing, and because, in user applications, comparing today’s XFCE to 2010’s XFCE is sad, and because comparing today’s Gnome to Gnome 2 in its prime is sad, and because comparing today’s KDE, eh, even to KDE4 - the same.

          Because it’s becoming less and less logical, wave after wave people suffering NIH syndrome and\or thinking that mimicking MacOS or Windows is very smart erode it, and because the Web is ugly and becoming uglier.

          And because CWM initial configuration takes 15 minutes to write and forget, and there’s no Wayland compositor which would take the same amount of time to set up for me, with the same easiness of use.

          Anyway, what I wrote in that comment was a subjective feeling and I’m trying to rationalize it retroactively now, which is the same as lying.

          Of course it’s what you said for Windows and MacOS users.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
    110·
    6 months ago

    How much time do we waste on car problems? Neighbor problems? Political problems? Grocery problems?

    • akilou@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      55·
      6 months ago

      Right and how much time do we save by having computers? Fixing the problems is just the cost of doing business

    • Cocodapuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      6 months ago

      Yeah, this seems like a pretty dumb conclusion. I expect that as far back as you look, people always took advantage of tools that save them time. But then they always also spent a fair amount of that time (that they could have been working), just maintaining/fixing/making their tools. I think the truth is that computers are very useful tools, but the maintenance and troubleshooting can be quite time consuming.

      I will continue using computers though.

      • Nougat@fedia.io
        5·
        6 months ago

        Using computers and also having to deal with their problems is still far more betterer than not using computers at all.

    • MIDItheKID@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      6 months ago

      Also in the context of working, this isn’t just computers. It’s tools in general, and a computer is a type of tool. Problems with your saw? Problems with your batteries? Problems with access to electricity and your extension cords not being long enough? Problem with losing your 10mm sockets? If you’re a trucker or driver the problem could be your vehicle. Etc etc etc.

      This article is stupid. Tools break, they always have and always will. The tools we have now are better than they have ever been. They will probably keep getting more and more efficient, but they will still break. Because tools break.

    • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      235·
      6 months ago

      Once everything is set up properly it just works tbh. Meanwhile in windows updates broke something every other time.

      • Takumidesh@lemmy.worldEnglish
        214·
        6 months ago

        This is so not true unless you are using some super stable old Debian release and aren’t doing complex work.

        Most DEs are super buggy, especially the darling child kde, which right off the bat makes things not super stable.

        Additionally some of the most loved distros are rolling release and inherently unstable.

        Hell, I use multiple distros daily, fedora and slackware, I also use windows for work, windows is by and large more stable in my experience.

        Slackware has kernel panics monthly, kde crashes on fedora, Wayland has too many problems to count, meaning I have to switch to x sessions all the time.

        Most GUI software I use has tons of visual glitches.

        Yes it’s tolerable, that’s why I still use it, but I wouldn’t exactly say it ‘just works’

        I would estimate I restart my fedora computer about 4-5 times more often than than the windows computer, and usually I have to restart fedora because of serious hard crashes (e.g. kde crashes so hard that I can’t even switch to a tty, meaning I need to hard reset)

        • Illecors@lemmy.cafeEnglish
          9·
          6 months ago

          I’ve not had anything like that since… forever. But then I’m not a kde nor fedora user. Naturally raises the question - have you considered switching from kde, fedora or both?

          • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.netEnglish
            34·
            6 months ago

            If Linux “just worked” I would have switched years ago. I’ve used several distributions, always preferred Gnome to KDE, and even with “expert” help setting things up, I always spent way more time trying to make things work than actually having things work. Unless it’s a basic-ass workstation being used for minimal computer things or to run a server for something, there’s always something that doesn’t want to work.

            I like the idea of Linux more than I actually like using Linux. :/

        • calcopiritus@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          6 months ago

          I use KDE on my Linux machine, which means that I cannot develop anything involving the GPU.

          The moment I experiment a little with the API or give it wrong parameters, not only my program crashes, but the whole system freezes and I have to manually press the “power off” button.

          It does happen in windows too, however it’s 100x less unlikely.

          I also had a problem not long ago that crashing my program would not free the RAM, so every time I ran the program (and it crashed), I had 2-3GiB less of RAM. So I had to restart the computer every 10 runs or so.

          Operating systems are supposed to isolate programs and manage their resources. A program crashing under no circumstances should affect any other program. I don’t understand how it can happen.

      • iopq@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        6 months ago

        Really? Because I updated and my wine prefix just broke. That was yesterday.

      • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pubEnglish
        12·
        6 months ago

        I’m literally dealing with an update issue with this distro lol

        To he fair, it was perfect, literally perfect, until now. And even now, it’s not unbootable, since I can just use the previous image point. Just sucks I can’t update.

    • oo1@lemmings.worldEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      All 0.4% of the user base or whatever it is? Unless you mean among the population of server admins.

    • Cosmicomical@lemmy.worldEnglish
      32·
      6 months ago

      I can’t tell if you are joking. But just in case, my installation worked flawlessly for years.

      • twig@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        6·
        6 months ago

        I mean, that’s fine, but as a Linux user I’ve fucked around a lot and spent a lot of time fixing mistakes that I did not need to make.

        I think I’m a pretty average Linux user. Who needs something that “just works” when you can break it by trying to add something you don’t need?

      • RickAstleyfounddead@lemy.lolEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        I’m joking I use fedora and its super stable And takes less time for gnome customization which can’t be achieved by windows

  • Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5616·
    6 months ago

    This is 100% due to Microsoft, google and Apple. If you dont understand, I’m not defending my position, or explaining further.

    • maxinstuff@lemmy.worldEnglish
      20·
      6 months ago

      Tangent: what’s this trend all about where people will make a statement and then firmly state that they will not answer questions or explain themselves afterwards?

      I’m seeing it everywhere.

    • a4ng3l@lemmy.worldEnglish
      91·
      6 months ago

      Working server side much? Pretty sure a lot of us spend a lotta time on fixing shit unrelated to either of those 3… Not that it diminishes the merit of our IT support dude that endure due to those 3 indeed.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        One thing I appreciate about Arch is that it’s quick to set up if you don’t care and still need something kinda controllable.

        Since I don’t reinstall everything every week, I’m fine with Void. But I’ve used Arch for a month or so. It’s sane.

    • oo1@lemmings.worldEnglish
      4·
      6 months ago

      Oracle vies with MS as to who fucks me more often each working week. Cuurrently Oracle is pippng MS for biggest fucker award. If you don’t understand, you’ve never had to use Oracle (front end / web UI products - tbf the back end DB usually works ok).

    • PlexSheep@infosec.pubEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      Correct, but not how you meant it, fixing my Linux boxes is is my hobby now, so ita not a waste of time anymore.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zipEnglish
      9·
      6 months ago

      It’s actually simple.

      HIG, UX, ergonomics, all that - it doesn’t build up. Acceptable complexity of a pretty mechanical normal 80s’ UI\UX is the same as of a modern one. Humans don’t evolve over decades, they evolve over spans of time which are as good as eternity. They still need the same kind of complexity in tools they use.

      A control panel for a loader that a factory worker should be able to use is as complex as a workflow on a computer can be. And that’s very explicitly accounting for the fact that loader’s or lift’s control panel doesn’t change every fucking day and the user remembers it, so computer UIs should be simpler than those of lifts and loaders!

      You just don’t make UI\UX more complex than that. There are things humans can learn to do, and there are things they often can’t and they shouldn’t.

      The issue is that this creates a bottleneck for clueless project managers, UI designers and such. They can’t throw together some shit in 30 minutes. They have to choose. They have to test. They don’t want that. And no regulation makes them do that, because if a loader has an unclear UI\UX, you might kill someone, while if an email program has that, you’ll just get very nervous.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        A control panel for a loader that a factory worker should be able to use is as complex as a workflow on a computer can be. And that’s very explicitly accounting for the fact that loader’s or lift’s control panel doesn’t change every fucking day and the user remembers it, so computer UIs should be simpler than those of lifts and loaders!

        I design control panels. I try to keep the workflow consistent not because I see value in it, but because some asshole decided that they didn’t want to pay for retraining. Really I don’t care, having to retool slightly every decade or so is pretty reasonable. Especially given that the tech is always changing.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.zipEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          Especially given that the tech is always changing.

          Humans don’t. Changing things is fine, making using them more complex for the same result, because another decade has passed, is not.

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            6 months ago

            It has to get more complicated, more edge cases have popped up and the process is more complicated.

            Look basic example. I made an uncoiler and needed to add in a reverse override. Why? Because someone one time loaded it in wrong.

            • rottingleaf@lemmy.zipEnglish
              1·
              6 months ago

              By “more complex” I meant making other operations slower (EDIT: and harder to understand) for somebody using it, so - not this example.

  • elrik@lemmy.worldEnglish
    32·
    6 months ago

    “Up to 20%” is meaningless for a headline and is pure click bait. It could be any number between 0% and 20%. Or put another way, any number from no time at all to a horrifying more than an entire day per week.

    Why not just state the average from what is probably a statistically irrelevant study and move on?

  • Zip2@feddit.ukEnglish
    262·
    6 months ago

    Sounds more like a lot of people could do with some basic computer skills training.

    • Sailor Moon@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      I don’t know how many times I’ve taught my coworkers to use the search features or ctrl+f function … at this point it feels like they are willfully forgetting. They ask me to help them do something, I go over to their computer, one of the steps is to bring up 1 specific document from the list of 100+ documents, they proceed to slowly scroll… and scroll… and scroll…