How to help someone use a computer

I found I got a lot "better" at communicating just by toning down my geekiness. Not by changing in the content of what I say, just by changing my bedside manner. Instead of saying, "and this part is neat," I joke about how much the computer sucks and how annoying it is. When I do that, people trust that what I'm telling them is actually helpful and relevant to their usage of the machine. Before, they would ignore most of what I said. They tried to filter out what they assumed was gratuitous geekery so they could get to the "payoff" where I told them how to do what they need to do. Since I wasn't actually wasting their time with extraneous information, they missed most of what they needed to know to understand what I was telling them. It's really hard to talk to people when they assume the proper way to understand you is to hear about 10% of what you're saying.

When I pretend to hate computers as much as they do, they actually listen to everything I say, and voila, they understand a whole hell of a lot better.

I knew I'd seen it, and suspected I found it through HN. Here it is with its discussion:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=400048

No harm in seeing this again, but the (rather small) discussion has some interesting points and counter-points.

I found this to be the most useful point:

Don't take the keyboard. Let them do all the typing, even if it's slower that way, and even if you have to point them to every key they need to type. That's the only way they're going to learn from the interaction.

While there are certainly times when something needs to be accomplished in a hurry (in which cases I interject, "mind if I drive for a minute?"), 95% of the time I defer to letting the user explore and find the appropriate solution.

More often then not they ask me to take over and "fix it". I refuse politely and encourage them to try for themselves, along with some guidance from me. I am happy to walk them through, but I've found that long term, just fixing the problem without teaching leads to a lifetime of being on call any time a user encounters even the slightest error.

A few rebuttals, from someone who taught basic computer usage at a community center for a few years:

> If it's not obvious to them, it's not obvious.

At first, yes. If, however, I explain it, I demonstrate it, I guide them to do it five times in various contexts, and they do it themselves for me in five more contexts—and then they call me back over because they still "can't" do it—then is is their fault, and they're just being helpless because they want attention.

> You are the voice of authority. Your words can wound.

I wish I was the voice of authority. 90% of the "guidance" I gave people was of the "X does not work like Y, you need to learn a new skill to do X" variety, with them not listening and going ahead and treating X like a Y, and then asking me why it doesn't work.

> Your primary goal is not to solve their problem. Your primary goal is to help them become one notch more capable of solving their problem on their own. So it's okay if they take notes.

Oh, I wish they saw it that way. They want "an answer, not a lecture." They want me to be a magic elf who comes, saves them from their mess, and lets them live in ignorant bliss, even though they came to be taught computing skills. It's quixotic.

Some current context:

http://sites.google.com/site/philipagre/