Connecting computers
It might be said that the easier computers get to use the dumber the users get;the joy is when the computer tries to do everything for you then there's nothing you can do when something goes wrong.
I got a phone call from Artist late Friday night, he was trying to install a wireless broadband router via his laptop and the installation kept crapping out with an error at the same point. He was physically tethered to the system and the installation was trying to establish a connection between computer and router and failing.
Router is on and the network says there's a connection. I get him to start Internet Explorer and type in the SSID of the router to talk to its configuration; no go but he has internet connectivity. Hmm so why is the installer failing?
I get him to untether and try again, no connection. "Um is the wireless on your laptop on?" I ask. "Ah" he says, "how do I found out?" After some fumbling he locates a switch with wireless labelled above it and turns it on; and the installer suddenly springs to life and finishes.
Yep the installer didn't bother telling him that it was checking the wireless connection, didn't ask if the wireless was on, it just said it was testing the connection and kept failing.
Second important question - "Is your connection encrypted?". The installer hadn't asked for any security settings and typing in the SSID still didn't bring up the configuration screen so I had to try and recall the commands to get bloody Vista to display network settings. Much fiddling and we discover it's using WEP (not great, but better then nothing). Not having a router config was annoying me so I got him to bring up a cmd box "Ah are we pinging?" he asks; I'm impressed he remembers this term from several months back when I was configuring his parents computer, but no we're tracert'ing and yep the router is at 192.168.1.1 (yeah it's default and I could have got mucho kudos for just having him try that first, but it wouldn't have taught him anything). Tapping that into IE and lo a config page. "You probably won't need this, but if someone else sets up a wireless network nearby then you might need to change the channel number and here's where you do it so now you know", "Cool, um is it alright for me to have the router in [position]?" he asks. "Depends on your walls and where you're going to be using your laptop, but from what I recall that should be fine", "Cool".
Sign off and... another call "Is it alright to turn the router off at night?" "Yes it should be fine".
See all these 'silly' little things that should be included in an easy to follow manual/FAQ when all you get is a CD you're supposed to blindly install from.
4 comments:
The hardest part about writing documentation is… figuring out which facts you actually need to document.
This becomes harder the more expert you are at the subject in question. ;-)
But that's what a test group is for, you hand them the stuff with the draft instructions and see what they do and what they ask.
My cousin asking if he can switch the router off is a case in point, with all this green awareness crud did no-one else ask this question? Did no-one try to use the CD without having their wireless turned off by accident? They're hardly esoteric DNS forwarding configuration and VPN tunnelling type questions and yet he had to call an 'expert' to get the answers.
Testing? Doesn't that cost money?
How do you think it's possible to guy a device containing an x86 computer, a microwave transmitter and a Linux kernel for only £20? ;-)
Nah just give it to the secretarial pool and see how they cope. You know that would explain a lot if they did the same thing for QA at certain video game publishers.
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