Tim recently wrote an entry where he mentioned that sometimes he feels like everyone bashes MS. And he’s right, they do. I was thinking about this, and for all his fanboy <3 for Microsoft, he’s right; the Evil Empire gets unnecessarily singled out for a lot of crap.

But computers still suck.

I got a clear understanding of this when I tried to use my parents’ computer at home. You may be under the impression that a computer is a useful tool, but if you were to visit our home computer, you would learn that you have been mistaken for many years; a computer is actually a high latency typewriter.*

This is partly because my parents, both highly paid professionals, are idiots, of course. At least when it comes to computers. But if you think that lack of experience with computers is the only obstacle to using them, you’d be totally wrong. This was best illustrated by Mark Pilgrim, a web developer at IBM:

Every installation of Windows naturally degrades along a logarithmic curve until it becomes annoying, then unbearable, then unusable. Each successive revision of Windows has featured a slightly longer half-life. Back in the day, Windows 95 would last me about 3 months, while my copy of Windows XP has lasted me almost 9. [source]

Computers simply get less and less functional the longer they’re around. This isn’t because the processor slows down or the memory starts to shrink. Rather, over time, settings changes, application installs, and random DLL debris accumulates until it becomes necessary to spend five hours flushing the computer’s guts and reinstalling it all. This is tolerable and normal as far as computer experts are concerned, but our tacit acceptance of this, other arcane maintenance rituals, and absurd dialog boxes, are symptoms of the failure of software designers to understand everyday people and how they use computers.

The failure goes much deeper than user experience design. Wound up in our culture is an idea that the general public is ignorant; that it’s their fault if they don’t know how to use Windows, Linux, or their computer’s cup holder. Every time we treat the general public as incompetent, we’re practicing a form of elitism that refuses to acknowledge our failure to provide tools that are good enough for public use. It’s fortunate that Microsoft is unpopular in many circles, because otherwise we might see more MS geeks taking the same condescending “software isn’t broken, you’re broken” vibe you get from a few select *nix nerds.

Almost everyone could use a computer if it were properly designed. And with apologies to Microsoft, Apple, and the creators of Linux, we are still not at the point where not being ignorant qualifies you to use a computer. We’ve done amazing things to make software easier to use, it’s true. They’re just not good enough.

*Before you ask, yes, I did write this entry on paper while the computer was busy trying to display a window.