Beware of blind elitism
tnl.net
tnl.net
When I first got into business, before I really fell into accounting software, I was using tech support services as an opening (I lived in a rural town of 3000 year-round residents). I started getting a number of elderly clients who had trouble with computers and no more luck than the rest of us calling Dell for help. So of course you get to know these people, and wow..... I had a customer who was getting alzheimers, but used to manage telephone and network cabling at Boeing, and another who was a former crossbar switch technician at AT&T. Wow, I've heard about crossbar switches but was confused about how they worked. Naturally my business has moved on, and some of these wonderful people have passed away, but it was an incredibly enriching experience.
Many of these people were smart and technologically savvy. I found with a little attention to detail I could set up the computer for the Alzheimer's sufferer so that she could figure out how to do what she needed to do without having to learn it. And the other crossbar switch technician? well... he quickly became one of my favorite customers. He used his computer more than many people half his age, and when he wasn't on the computer he was in the wood shop. Amazing man. And to think I got to know him because Dell didn't consider his blue screens might be heat related (he had a broken heat sink retention assembly).
I have spent most of my life in rural parts of the country. Flyover country as they call it. Most of the stereotypes are just plain wrong. Rural areas I have lived in, for example, don't tend to have political ideologies resembling the sort of conservatism that can come out of big cities in part because with fewer people around, there tends to be less of a heavy trend towards rugged individualism. And I don't think it's just where I lived. I think about the Bank of North Dakota, and it occurs to me that the county where I normally live used to have a tax-funded no-fare bus system until big city conservatives told us we couldn't do that.
All the things you don't think there are in the country-side, there are.
The danger here obviously is that a lot of tech talk regarding product development is slanted towards a market that doesn't exist. It's why I always say "work with the customer, understand their use cases, and work with them to make the interface easy." Customers are wonderful people if you listen to them.
So it may be prudent from their side.
I opened up the case and found little broken pieces of plastic inside, and called Dell back, and spent half an hour trying to order the part.....
The problem I have with the way they handled it is simple: head can damage computer chips, and when you have a system which is bluescreening on boot, you really need to check out heat problems before you start troubleshooting the software. I was surprised that after hour of constantly being powered on and off without an attached heat sink, it still worked after getting the part replaced...... But it did. They could have fried his computer and never knew they did it.
"If you want to ensure the best experience, please install a browser that was developed after 2009."
"I know many would fault me for [not supporting IE] on TNL.net but the design decision of not supporting older internet explorer browsers was based on analytics data that showed me that only 5% of my overall audience was using those"
Remember, ignoring IE users is not necessarily about elitism, but can also be a financially sound decision.
It's also not a good idea to be condescending to your users. The tone of that message is anything but friendly. The "banned" message mentioned in another comment even less so.
Maybe it's not blind elitism, maybe it's forethought elitism.
Also, this seems to be happening because of his breakpoint at width <= 1024px I believe. Confirmed this on both Chrome dev and Firefox Aurora.
The owner of this website (www.tnl.net) has banned your access based on your browser's signature
Seems he does not like browsers that strip all their headers. Is this an Ironic joke that I am not getting?
If you run a real-world business like a restaurant or a corner store, you can't help but soak up details about the customer experience. But running virtual businesses it's easy to have no idea what's going on. (Indeed, a lot of people want to have no idea what's going on; look at the million suckers seeking "passive income" internet businesses.)
Once you have the skill of talking to strangers, talking with customers is surprisingly easy. Most people love to talk about themselves and their experiences, especially if it lets them feel helpful. That's one of the things I think the Lean Startup folks have right: the sooner you start talking with potential customers, the more likely you are to build something that serves them well.