"Computer users are changing. Ten years ago, most
computer users were young people or professionals with lots of
technical expertise. When things went wrong-which they often
did-they knew how to fix things. Nowadays, the average user is far
less sophisticated, perhaps a 12-year-old girl or a grandfather.
Most of them know about as much about fixing computer problems as
the average computer nerd knows about repairing his car. What they
want more than anything else is a computer that works all the time,
with no glitches and no failures.
"Many users automatically compare their computer to their
television set. Both are full of magical electronics and have big
screens. Most users have an implicit model of a television set: (1)
you buy the set; (2) you plug it in; (3) it works perfectly without
any failures of any kind for the next 10 years. They expect that
from the computer, and when they do not get it, they get
frustrated. When computer experts tell them: "If God had wanted
computers to work all the time, He wouldn't have invented RESET
buttons" they are not impressed."
