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Comment by btilly | Hacker News Reader

I remember one user a decade ago who I set up a process for that was basically, "Run this report, verify that it looks OK, then send it there" who was unable to do so. Repeatedly.

Turns out that she was opening a CSV file in Excel, saving it, and then it couldn't be parsed.

It took a surprising amount of training for her to understand that this really was "changing something". When she eventually got it she asked why she was supposed to be able to look at it at all. My reply is that that was the spec, and someone higher up thought she should see it.

She stopped looking at it and the problem went away.

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a line of copy I added to a client's website last night

Please do not simply rename the file extension of your file to match the formats we require. They will not open.

Apparently there are plenty of people who thing changing the file extension from .docx to .psd changes to format. Windows (and OSX too, I guess) are partially to blame here as they'll happily change the icon

To give the complete picture though, recent Windows warn you before applying the changes to the file extension.

Although the users would still blindly click "Yes" even if the dialog asked for their firstborn child.

don't get me started...

Now here's an idea for any software developers - grab AutoIt (is it still around?) and make a quick script called "typical_user" that automatically clicks "Yes" (or similar) on any dialogs that appear. Now, run this in the background while testing the UI of your software :)

Edit: Yes, AutoIt still exists! http://www.autoitscript.com/site/autoit/

Or try http://www.sikuli.org/

For automation, it's replaced AutoIt in my toolbox - just in case I get another contract in the future like one of these.

OSX warns you when you change the file extension too, though it doesn't warn that it may not work, it just says it'll open in a different application.

Did you read that EULA then?

You say that as if your users will actually read that. I find that the ones who need the most help don't read anything you've written and expect to follow the process they have in their mind no matter what happens.

I have literally read the message on the screen to someone to solve their problem.

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