New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: Sources about a particular form of user hostility?
Ask HN: Sources about a particular form of user hostility?
3 by maxbond | 2 comments on Hacker News.
Hi HN, I'm working on a blog post about something I call "usability nihilism" (named in relation to therapeutic nihilism). This is a type of user hostility in the form of, "users aren't smart enough to understand their computers" or "users don't want to understand their computers;" an attitude that software should present simplistic views to the user, reserving the true interface only for programmers and administrators, and that users aren't capable of or interested in troubleshooting or solving computer problems. I'll save the arguments about whether this is good or bad for the blog post (if you feel moved to take a position in this thread, that's your right, but I'm going to decline to respond until I've completed my research - I'm not the thread police, but I am personally only here to discuss sources), but I'm looking for prior work about this idea, and so far I'm not finding it. I don't think I'm the first person to notice this phenomenon. I'm wondering if anyone can point me to sources on this topic or keywords to search for? So far I've been looking for blog posts & academic articles about user hostility and UX, and I'm finding interesting stuff, but not quite what I'm looking for (discussion of hostility seems to be about either disenfranchising users to monetize them or offering deaf ears to their concerns, cousins to usability nihilism but not identical). Thanks, Max
3 by maxbond | 2 comments on Hacker News.
Hi HN, I'm working on a blog post about something I call "usability nihilism" (named in relation to therapeutic nihilism). This is a type of user hostility in the form of, "users aren't smart enough to understand their computers" or "users don't want to understand their computers;" an attitude that software should present simplistic views to the user, reserving the true interface only for programmers and administrators, and that users aren't capable of or interested in troubleshooting or solving computer problems. I'll save the arguments about whether this is good or bad for the blog post (if you feel moved to take a position in this thread, that's your right, but I'm going to decline to respond until I've completed my research - I'm not the thread police, but I am personally only here to discuss sources), but I'm looking for prior work about this idea, and so far I'm not finding it. I don't think I'm the first person to notice this phenomenon. I'm wondering if anyone can point me to sources on this topic or keywords to search for? So far I've been looking for blog posts & academic articles about user hostility and UX, and I'm finding interesting stuff, but not quite what I'm looking for (discussion of hostility seems to be about either disenfranchising users to monetize them or offering deaf ears to their concerns, cousins to usability nihilism but not identical). Thanks, Max
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