News 50% of 'faulty' products baffle users

[WilHarris]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/03...oducts_baffle/

[kiljoi]

As part of her research, she gave several Phillips electronic devices to management executives who actually worked for Phillips, then laughed as they spent a weekend unable to work out what to do with them.

That cracks me up. You should not be in charge of a company if you can't even work their basic consumer-level products.

[MiNiMaL_FuSS]

my dad bought a £300 DVD/HD recorder for his stack system....found it really difficult to use and so bought a different model that was more user friendly.

i would have shown him how to use it....but now it lives under my TV instead muahaha

[Firehed]

Yeah, sometimes the geeks benefit from that

That picture with the kitten had so much potential to win heartgrabbing-cute-of-the-month award, if it weren't for that damned beige drive!

The figure doesn't surprise me at all, though. While it's not just consumer electronics, we live in an age where we expect things to just work after opening them. I remember back when hooking up computers was hard.... you know, back when the keyboard and mouse PS/2 ports were both grey.

That bit about the Phillips stuff is outright scary, though.

[automagsrock]

I like cats. People are, in general, complete idiots. Go to any Bar in my town and you will see what I mean. I hate stupid people so much. At my job, someone will stare at a stuck pinsetter for 10 minutes before coming and saying "Our lane is broke." Sometimes I wonder how some people are allowed to live.

[L2wis]

Software wise I've always put 'sonicstage' from sony down as: "This isn't my fault it's not doing what i want it to... It must be faulty!" You'd have a job taking it back or complaining about it, so instead i use real player 10 to burn my minidiscs.

As for the philips guys... losers!

[NuTech]

What I wonder is, are electrical products asking too much from it's users? If the majority of people cannot use these products (lets for now ignore that even today most people still refuse to read the manual) can we really accuse them of being 'stupid' (for lack of a better word) and do we really have a right to get inpatient?

I must admit that I've been close to losing my rag when trying to explain simple computer tasks to family members or friends. But if you think about it, the computer is unique in the fact that no other device/product has ever been adapted into our society and way of life so rapidly or deeply. Take other majors inventions and 'life changers' like the car for instance, forgetting the fact that you even have to pass a test to legally drive one, no one expects you to understand how they work. If it breaks and you bring it to a garage, you do not expect the mechanic to laugh or snigger at you just because you don't know what's wrong or how to fix it, you just want him to do the job and let you be on your way.

What I think it boils down to is that we are at a major transition point in our society where by the younger generation has been brought up around computers and the lifestyle that comes with it while the older generation didn't even have computers that could fit in the average home at the time of their birth.

[Shadowed_fury]

50% is an awful number of people. But in all honesty it doesn't suprise me at all!

[chunky_monkey]

A friend just purchased a Sony laptop, a 60Gb Ipod video, and a digital camera. He has no idea about how to use any of them and is starting from scratch. Totally. Almost bad enough to make me cry. But he's trying so thats cool.

What surprised me was how little documentation he got with any of them, the sony comes with warrenty info but no paper instructions (they are all on the laptop itself, which is real handy for total beginers), the Ipod has how to plug it into a computer and a itunes cd, the only one that has a manual you can actually read before playing with the device is the camera! The sony has got so much crap installed as standard it would confuse most people and some of it is trial software and some doesn't even work from new (Norton Ghost falls into both these catagories!).

So yes people can be stupid, and there are some real luddites out there, but when did companies give up on helpful documentation?

[Kipman725]

documentation is a problem, MSDOS 6 came with a manual of sevral hundered pages all in english. XP home which is more complex came with a two sided pamphlet in 8 languges which was full of marketing double speak, a sticker for the side of your pc (yeah like hell I'm putting that thing near my pc!) and shiney cd in a paper packet.

As for idiots although amusing there pushing the price of our hardware up with there incompitance.

[dire_wolf]

Does not suprise me at all, most of the returns I get at work are because the user is unable, or too stupid to install a device driver.

That comment about the phillips exec's doesn't suprise me either, they're not there because they're technical boffins, they're there because they're good with money, or the making of it, same goes for most companies tbh, our regional manager hasn't got the foggiest about most of the things that litter our shelves, but she's good with figures and money.

[Hans Voralberg]

LOL my new DSLR come with the same kind of manual, how to turn on the thing and properly strap it, hell who care how i strap it ? And 50% is a bit surprising actually, thought it must be something like 90%, most of the time i spend in the school lab is actually fixing the printer, and idiots standing and swearing and ranting when it blatantly said on the LCD that the paper is jammed and instruction on how to solve ??

[ralph.pickering]

How things might have been...


Ah yes. The easy to use Fortran language...

[Buzzons]

hans, they dont know which part is the front so they wont know what "remove front draw" means

[Hybr1d]

Originally Posted by L2wis

Software wise I've always put 'sonicstage' from sony down as: "This isn't my fault it's not doing what i want it to... It must be faulty!" You'd have a job taking it back or complaining about it, so instead i use real player 10 to burn my minidiscs.

As for the philips guys... losers!

You've violated the geek code of honour #163!

Real is awful!

...

I can definately believe the stupidity of consumers though. I often see people returning things because they can't (be bothered?) to work things out, or just can't comprehend certain uses of technology. I must say though there is not much help for first time/new PC users unless you are a technical person. I think if you can't pick up an iPod and work out how to use it within 30 seconds you should be banned from buying electronics !

[pjotero]

does anybody have numbers from outside america?

[Firehed]

Reminds me of the time someone brought back a DVD saying the volume was messed up. Of course I knew darn well that every single copy of Charle and the Chocolate Factory has the voices playing at the same level so it was obviously something wrong with her setup. But at a local video store with five employees, keeping the customer happy is pretty important so I credited her account anyways.

Consider typical dumbness. You think it's common sense to not get your fingerprints all over the part of the DVD that gets read. Apparently not. I can understand some minor scratching from not being gentle enough putting it in the player, but some of the damage I've seen is incredible. I'd swear some people get their hands extra greasy just before grabbing the disc the same way you would a frisbee. One looked like it had been used as the flat surface you're suppsed to have when lapping a heatsink... literally sandpapered.

Too true Hybr1d. Oh teh h0rr0rs! If only putting music on my MD player wasn't such a freakin' chore, I might not have ended up with an iPod. But when it puts a three-transfer limit on music you've ripped from your own CDs and other absolutely idiotic things (not to mention the ultra-proprietary-ness of atrac3), it's just stupid.

[speedfreek]

Originally Posted by Hybr1d

You've violated the geek code of honour #163!

Real is awful!

I would like to see the list.

It dosent even suprise me, my friend works geek squad and has some interesting stories to tell.

[RotoSequence]

A lot of you are taking a somewhat selfish view on the whole matter; realize that modern electronics, especially computers, arent exactly super intuitive. Yes, its somewhat bad for someone to be incapable of putting in all the plugs, but there are things that you cant fairly expect from an older, or technologically illiterate individual, to get right off the bat. The results of this study reflect that.

[ozstrike]

But some stuff isn't exactry hard to use.
It shows a problem with todays technology if that many people can't figure it out.