I don't mean to imply that "technical" and "non-technical" is a binary, but we usually box ourselves into these roles regardless. Anyway, I want to hear your stories!
What was your most frustrating experience dealing with "non-technical" people?
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Top comments (44)
"I have an idea for an app!!"
"Would you be interested in 1% of the project in exchange for developing this for me?"
And you get to develop both the App and do their website and keep it updated ... oh sign me up
Same thing recently actually.
I always appreciate when someone tries some basic steps to resolve their own issues with some tool before going to someone else, but it can be a little frustrating when a person develops a pattern of associating totally unrelated actions to a fix. Eg "I closed Notepad and suddenly Completely-Unrelated-Tool-X worked properly again!" - this then spreads as a tip throughout the rest of the team and all of a sudden you have dozens of people closing Notepad to try to resolve totally unrelated issues.
"When I turn my monitor off, spin my chair, then turn it on again, the save button works properly"
Spinning your chair can fix a surprising number of problems...
Wheeeeeeee..... :D
LOOL indeed!
Oh, I have somebody who still does this when programming. Gets one error, sends all the files to me saying "this doesn't work".
Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy a clàssic.
I get quite frustrated with the amount of user-blaming in this industry. Yes, it can be annoying when non-techies ask questions when the interface already makes things very clearly, but I think it's always good to look for the reason why people keep asking those things. What's confusing them? Are we making assumptions about our users' knowledge and experience that aren't true? This goes for products, but also for communication within a company. While it's never acceptable to be rude, not even (or especially not) as a manager, there's probably a reason why they get so angry. Look at the differences between your and their assumptions (it's like UX in real life :)).
For me, its initiative. What have they(non-tech) done to understand my domain, if I'm expected to understand theirs (sales constraints, support queries, SLAs etc).
So you have a question, that's fine, but what have you done first to try answer it? (If not, do you think your time is more valuable than mine? Rude. Also wrong?)
"Oh yeah, I know you, you're good with computers, right?"
Then they say something like, my TV is broken, you can fix it right?😂😂😂
THIS so many times.
One of the Execs I worked with used to have late night emergency service requests often. They were generally caused by multiple The Fonz fist pounding attempts to "speed up things" before contacting IT. So if an email with a large attachment was sending slowly... he would literally repeatedly hit his screen, tower, mouse, or whatever other part he deemed was to blame.
To me, it's explaining to my family my job. I work remotely, from home, on software. When your family is used to the good old 9 to 5 and going to work every day, well it's a adventure...
In general, it's always a bit frustrating (but necessary) to adapt your speech to non-technical people. I can't talk the same way to a colleague and to my father who knows nothing about software. It's challenging, but it also shows if you really understand your subject
A little bit of psychology and talking in their terms goes a long way. I gently show people how to help themselves and they usually do. Plus this always helps me to improve documentation and UX anyway. That being said, it's funny how my wife expects me to know how every software application/website works. I guess that's better than her thinking I'm an idiot. 😊
I was discussing with a salesman (working in home-electrician field) about smart-home and smart-living. He was/is planning on implementing his own smart solution because he thinks he can make good money doing so. His problem: He has no idea about the technology behind all this. He asked me (I'm a software developer) how much such a solution would cost and how much he had to pay for "the cloud". The discussion was kinda amusing for me due to the lack of his knowledge.
Oh, I remember when I asked my non-technical manager at the time if we should ask the customer if they want to migrate some data (I don't remember now why I thought about migrating it, there was some data type change). She told the whole team later on that I wanted to throw away the particular set of data...