A plea for less negativity for the sake of negativity

[nogle]

Originally Posted by jusmee

Having been around the average user complaining about problems for a long time, I can tell you that you cannot, as a service person, nor as a developer, expect any sort of accuracy or detail when a bug is reported. It is a wonderful thing when you get it, but by far, the usual case is indeed - it's broken - fix it. This is normal, and not the user's fault. They do not have any expertise in how computer software works, and what seems obvious and easy to report (to you), is a confused blur to them. You won't even be told the error message/number even if there was one. They usually won't even recall how they triggered the event. No it's not easy, and the main protection you have is extensive testing before and after release.

I recall many times being told - the internet is broken - fix it Could be ANYTHING - email, browser, etc, to total connection loss. Worst thing you can to when dealing with a frustrated angry user/customer (remember the problem may have been making their experience miserable for a lengthy period) - is tell them they shouldn't complain - or tell them they need to provide a lengthy report (which they can't understand the details of) before you'll deign to fix it. That's how it is seen, in their eyes - they do not appreciate your workload and other pressures - nor should they have to.

To relate this to what happens here, I see users getting frustrated about lack of action on long standing bugs, and users finding new versions giving them more problems than they originally had. I think more tolerance is required until the situation improves for them.

Sorry for rambling...

Perhaps this is why I am not a computer service person. My response to those users would be along the lines of "You are too stupid to use a computer. Put it back in the box and never touch it again."

[NightGeometry]

Originally Posted by nogle

Perhaps this is why I am not a computer service person. My response to those users would be along the lines of "You are too stupid to use a computer. Put it back in the box and never touch it again."

But if those people are supremely good at something else, and the computer is a mere tool for them, then it is not such a straight forward situation. My current set of users are mostly like this - incredibly good at what they do, highly intelligent people, but they have no interest in knowing the finer points of *how* our system works, or whether the widget set has a rather intermittent issue. The system is a tool they use, if it doesn't work, we need to fix it.

Rather than them being too stupid to use it, maybe it is a case of use being too stupid to keep it working. If something goes wrong with my systems, then I deserve a kicking, our users probably can't do anything to deflate the team, because we will know at that point that we have screwed up, and we will be gutted by it - we expect our users to not be positive, we failed them.

When my shower breaks I am not really very good at fixing it - I can tell a plumber that water doesn't come out when I turn the tap, that it stopped while I was away for the weekend, and that the rest of the taps work. That is about all I can say to help, and I suspect my shower is a lot more straightforward than even a fairly basic software system.

It is my plumbers job to fix my shower, I can try to help, but most of the time s/he'll just want me to get lost. It is my job to keep my users tools running. It is any system providers job to provide useable tools that do what they should.

[paulsalter]

Originally Posted by NightGeometry

When my shower breaks I am not really very good at fixing it - I can tell a plumber that water doesn't come out when I turn the tap, that it stopped while I was away for the weekend, and that the rest of the taps work. That is about all I can say to help, and I suspect my shower is a lot more straightforward than even a fairly basic software system.

It is my plumbers job to fix my shower, I can try to help, but most of the time s/he'll just want me to get lost. It is my job to keep my users tools running. It is any system providers job to provide useable tools that do what they should.

Isn't this what some are saying people should do when they have an issue with Kobo

Instead of just saying it's broke, fix it, give a few details

If your shower was broke, you gave some details of the issue to the plumber, not just phoned him and said "my shower is broke, fix it"

I work in support so know it is hard to get information from people, but some basics really do help

instead of saying

"When I read a book on my Kobo it freezes"

change it to

"When I read 'name of book' it freezes"

**most of that a general reply to thread, just quoted you to comment on plumber example