Usability Forum

The Number One Sucky Thing About Computers

By WillYum. Saturday, June 2, 2012 9:56:17 PM

Trouble, tossing into the trash, computers

There are a lot of things that suck about computers but I think I identified the number one this afternoon as I tried to unhibernate my computer and write a critical email to a business partner. I had the stream of consciousness in my head. The thoughts that I wanted to communicate to him and I just kept hitting a wall with my computer.

First, my HP laptop was laggy. Windows seemed to be doing okay but it just couldn't stop choking. Finally, it "unhibernated" (or whatever the ridiculous term might be) and I opened Chrome, logged into Starbucks Wifi, and CRASH. Okay, Chrome crashed.

I opened Opera which proceeded to load every tab that I had open last session. Which is normally great, except right now when I just needed to get to my email box and write and send this email. Nothing else mattered. Well, except maybe Pandora so I could block out the Starbucks noise....

Opera proceeded to open slowly but I finally got into my email and then Pandora was lagging out in the background. I started the email and then hit reload on the Pandora tab.

I was writing away, trying to focus as the computer would lag out and interrupt my train-of-thought every 10 to 30 seconds.

Suddenly, the whole system locked up. I realized I was getting far more angry than was appropriate (approaching the place where you pickup your laptop and chuck it through the Starbucks front door) so I stood up and walked away.

I took a five minute walk outside and when I got back? Still frozen.

So another few minutes, finally praying that the email had auto-saved and then forcing a power-off. Then I still had to wait for the reboot and five million worthless apps to load up.

These are all problems I should not ever have to deal with.

Why can't developers get this simple fact?

"Get out of the way of me getting stuff done."

This seems to be a major appeal of tablets, the environment is so controlled that crashing and lagging out seem to be rarer -- or at least less catastrophic. There are two types of activities I engage in when I sit down at this keyboard. 1) Getting shit done. 2) Screwing around.

When it's the first, I want my computer to cooperate with that perspective and place everything that is not absolutely necessary for my task at hand in the background. Opera don't load every tab. Chrome, don't crash. Windows, allocate system resources so that only my critical activities matter. HP, don't build such crappy laptops.

Imagine sitting down to write on a piece of paper and having your pen constantly run out or your paper just shred as you make the lightest touch on it.

Why do I constantly have to cater to my tools? In the generation since computers began to become a ubiquitous component of our society why must I perpetually try and fit my workflow into it's paradigm? Why can't it meet me where I need to be?

This was a big complaint about the iPhone when it was originally released -- it was a cool computer but a very sucky phone. I want my computer to work for me.

So to the OS developers out there, please, I beg you... I don't care what it takes but make sure what I have to get done is a priority and do it in a graceful way.

Yum

Counting in GovernmentFor laughs

Comments

MichaelVB # Sunday, June 3, 2012 3:59:23 PM

(Next try, I found my login data and added explicite HTML brakes.
This is a thing that sucks. All forums should have a preview, that shows the final formatting. Or should not modify what I copied in!)

I think it's not suitable to compare e-mail-writing to a piece of paper and a pencil.
Because e-mail is much more. It's the envelope (who did take the last one?) plus a stamp (where have they all gone?) plus a letter box (where was the next one? Is it still there? How to get there?) And on such days you find your car barricaded by another one, so you take your bicycle. You hit the broken glass bottle on the street and get a puncture; then it begins to rain. Having finally reached the letter box you see, that today's last emptying was just 5 minutes ago. After you put the letter into the box you remember, that the postage had been risen a few days before and that your letter has the wrong stamp on it.
Some days later you realize, that you don't remember, what you had written, and you don't have a copy of your hand written text.

Yes, I also have problems with my computer(s) from time to time, sometimes severe. But it is also a matter on how we use this tool.
If you had hibernated your laptop, why did you have to start your browsers (again?). I leave them open when hibernating. That is the purpose of hibernating.
And, you where the one, that opened so many tabs in Opera and left them open. If in the real world you flood your desk with papers and books, it will also take a while, until you find an empty piece of paper and a working pencil, plus some empty space on the desk for writing.
BTW: The latest Firefox loads the tabs only when activated, and it seems, the upcoming Opera 12 will follow.

Such texts like this I don't write directly in a browser, but in a simple notes tool with local storage and auto-save every x moments. At the end I use Ctrl+C to copy the text to the browser.
For e-mails I also have a local program, that only needs to go online for sending the text.

You ask "Why can't developers get this simple fact?" IMHO the reason is, that the customers want to do more with their computers than writing e-mails. That's why those machines and systems are much complexer than a piece of paper and a pencil (plus envelope plus etc. ...)

You may use such "closed systems" from Apple which will most likely be more reliable. But beside the fact that they are more expensive, on this Apple machines you cannot use game X and application Y.

You may have one clean tablet with the only function of writing e-mails. And another for browsing, for example. This way you won't have to deal with open browser tabs if you just want to write an e-mail. But you want to combine these functions; not only to save money, but to exchange data between applications. That's the point where the additional benefits makes the whole thing complexer and less reliable.

I agree with you, that computers and systems could and should be easier and more reliable, but I am afraid it's not possible to the extent we both would wish. Not to forget, that they are still made by human beings, and still "errare humanum est".

WillYum # Sunday, June 3, 2012 7:16:39 PM

A very able response to my rambling rant.

Though I do confess, my desk may be messy but I have an overabundance of pens and keep all my empty paper to together in the same spot to compensate.

And philosophically, I do think the comparison is fair because it's a matter of workflow, not workload.

Unregistered user # Monday, June 4, 2012 11:22:23 AM

Biks writes: You gave a good example for the fact that software engineering is a very young field compared to mechanical or even electrical engineering. It took mechanical engineering more than a century to develop the reliable and usable machines of today. In other words, today's software development is at a state comparable to mechanical engineering at the end of the nineteenth century. Lots of new things, most of them worked more or less if you took enough care of them, but you always had to expect a major breakdown. To get a feeling for the difference of software engineering compared to mechanical engineering see how tiny the mechanical difference between new cars ten years ago and now is compared to the huge development of computers.

Jimtoyotabedzrock # Monday, June 11, 2012 7:18:27 PM

There is two features I wish Opera would add that Firefox has that solves this type of problem.

In Firefox they do not load a tab until you click on it when the browser is first starting up, unless it is a pinned tab. And the JS API for page visibility that slows down all the background pages JS timer to save battery and to allow the visible page to have priority.

Your lucky Chrome didn't hard lock or blue screen your system. Normally that is the only browser that can do that. Opera can when flash is involved sometimes allow it to lock up on a slow system but it is very very rare.

WillYum # Tuesday, June 12, 2012 4:59:54 PM

Originally posted by toyotabedzrock:

In Firefox they do not load a tab until you click on it when the browser is first starting up, unless it is a pinned tab. And the JS API for page visibility that slows down all the background pages JS timer to save battery and to allow the visible page to have priority.

Here, here.

Jonny Axelssonjax # Saturday, June 23, 2012 12:05:22 PM

That was the cool design of the Psion Netbook(1999-2003). The startup time was shorter than the time it took to flip up the lid, creating a fridge light-like illusion that it was always on. Basically this was the thing smart phones tried to emulate, but in real-life conditions neither phone nor PC were up to scratch. The Netbook was fairly hefty and was sunk by poor connectivity, but as a harbinger of things to come it was great. Further down the line it also saddled Nokia with the Symbian system, but that is another story. The PC in any format is not a mobile system, just like early smart phones you got the information you were looking for when you didn't need it anymore.

Jonny Axelssonjax # Thursday, June 28, 2012 12:21:23 PM

On that Psion aside, this Slashgear opinion The Wrong Motorola Bought Psion should be relevant to this blog.