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It saddens me sometimes to see videos like this. While the rest of us chuckle, we fail to learn the lesson, that users don’t share our world view of software.
As a Software Engineer, I am too well aware of our industries penchant for technical terms. Yet the fact remains that you can use the internet without knowing what a “browser” is, just as well as you can drive a car without knowing what a “limited slip differential” is.
Yes, the software world has it’s own argot, just like many other industries, but to me it seems we abuse the goodwill of our users by bombarding them with meaningless (to them) jargon. Users don’t care about the ingredients of software. They tend to be task focused, learning just enough to get by. Never venturing very far into the features of an application.
To me, the solution isn’t Technical Marketing. Although it helps, it’s not the users fault if they don’t know the technical terms we use, it’s our fault for not communicating and designing better. To make software or web applications popular, learn the lesson, and make tasks clear and simple, and avoid communicating in terms your user doesn’t understand.
Great reminder for software marketers that this is really the world we live in. Microsoft did a study that shows that people only use about 13 percent of the functionality/features of their software.
That’s a funny fact… everybody knows how to use the internet but they don’t even know the difference between a search egine and a browser.
Well i’m just proud i’m using Google Chrome myself. It’s 10x faster than ordinary internet browser.
Probably it’s true that people use 13% of the functionality/features of their software the same as people only use 10% of their brain.
I am a regular computer user myself and I’ve heard of Google Chrome but never used it.. Can anyone shed some more light about Google Chrome?
Am currently on Mozilla Firefox and am hooked with the desktop search facility especially for my emails as I deal with thousands of emails! Does Google Chrome have a similar tool?
Hi Maureen,
I haven’t heard of Firefox desktop search, though I would be interested in hearing more about it. Is it just an integration with Google Desktop search?
As for Chrome, I haven’t used it, and know very little about it. I would imagine, being a Google application, that it would integrate with GMail, Desktop search, and other Google applications. Probably best to drop over to Google and find out about Chrome directly: http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/features.html
-Chris