Daniel NixMay 17
Tekniquelly correct

Anyone who’s ever worked adjacent to IT knows better than to expect people to read the instructions. Doesn’t matter how clear they are, how publicly they’re announced, how urgent they’re explained to be.

Don’t ever, ever, design a critical process that involves people reading and following instructions. It’s dead on arrival.

May 15 at 4:17pmWeb
Show threadNormanDunbarMay 15
@tek This! 💯%
Show thread"Nurture-boy" Ric FlairMay 15
@tek
I'm happy if they read the whole (short) email or ticket reply.
Show threadTekniquelly correctMay 15
@mikefordays And that’s asking an awful lot!
Show threadNex CarterMay 15

@tek @mikefordays

And still it makes me cry that people can't read a whole email...

Show threadTekniquelly correctMay 15
@NexCarter @mikefordays I only got as far as "cry" then stopped reading. Was the rest important?
Show threadclewMay 15

Even reading the second sentence is a good sign!

@mikefordays @tek

Show threadZillionMay 15
@tek Not just the instructions. To read, period. <Taps the sign> to no effect.
Show threadTekniquelly correctMay 15
@zillion "Oh, was that important?"
Show threadMichal BryxíMay 15
@tek Necessity to have instructions is just a failure of #UX.
Show threadscrottie (he/him/them)May 15
@tek A big part of my job is building and maintaining data integrations. About 95% of my work on that is reminding people from all levels of the organization that other orgs need to actually send data over to us before we can pull it in.
Many data integrations happen with automated scheduled email reports, which is already bad enough. I had a ticket the other day where I was asked to test an integration because email was coming in to the email inbox set up for the integration. The email was personal email correspondence from someone at the remote company.
But seriously as much as I want to foreheadslap, I'm constantly in awe of people's ability to derail corporate processes. Bravo. Honestly, keep it up. The tiniest shred of plausible deniability and some looking the other way from coworkers does a lot.
Show threadTekniquelly correctMay 15
@scrottie I believe every word of this and will defend it as utterly plausible.
Show threadPaul SomeoneElseMay 15


an agent of dual power ...


Show threadPaul SomeoneElseMay 15
Makes me think of OpenBSD's "sensible defaults" idiom.

Show threadTekniquelly correctMay 15
@pkw That's absolutely critical IMO.
Show threadDaniel AJ SokolovMay 15

@tek I assembled a machine yesterday. The assembly instructions said to make sure the User Guide was chained to the machine. So as a last step, I chained the User Guide to the machine.

Then I began using the machine

Later it came to me that maybe I could have opened the User Guide too?

Show threadOld Man MillerMay 15
@tek
Especially if they were translated from Chinese.
Show threadda_kinkMay 15
@tek write-only documentation...
Show threadveeteeMay 16
@tek you want them to call into the pit of success
Show threadMoreno Colaiacovo 🌍May 16
@tek Poor developers, forced to write documentation nobody will ever read 😅