Employment
niche for active veterans
IT veterans against thoughtlessness
· Modern “civilized” society has created a niche of employment that urgently requires suitable workers.
o A passion for ill-conceived change must be limited in a sensible framework.
§ This passion is so unbalanced by checks and balances that the changes imposing on society are too often negligently prepared, insufficiently justified and, as a result, counterproductive.
· This niche is ideal for active veterans
o with trained creative abilities, competencies and a constructive mentality - a combination of ingenuity with experience and healthy skepticism is especially valuable in this niche.
· The need for active veterans is beneficial to both veterans and society as a whole
o for veterans it is very important, for society as a whole is critical.
· I do represent just such veterans who are ready to cooperate in this niche with serious partners, relying on my own base of deep understanding of its specifics.
o We find lethal defects in the creations of the company that has entered into a contracted with us, as well as in the creations of its competitors, and offer the best solution for the company.
o We not only can explain what and how not to do (many can), we can offer a way to make, and justify our proposal sensibly (few can do this).
The culture of change in our world leaves much to be desired. As the creators, people cheerfully tread on the same rake, while as clients, they often wonder why
· defaults sometime more disturb and confuse than help
· diagnostics is terrifying (or absent at all)
· interface dazes with unpleasant surprises
· updated versions of popular programs are not so much delight as annoy
o they require attention and time for updating, essentially giving nothing important to the client, and sometimes depriving him of his most important habitual possibilities
§ moreover, they often do not ask for permission or warn the client about the preparation and even the beginning of the update
· the client can only guess that the device is stuck because it is taken up with an update
o it is not for nothing that there is a sad joke that the main function of MS Windows was the update of MS Windows
· popular search engines feel free to replace the client's request - they are looking for something that is different (or completely different!) of the customer request
· etc.
Thoughtlessness in the design and testing of changes is the very same rake.
The damage from thoughtlessness is enormous, however, society is not yet able to take it into account and does not require compensation.
To feel the true scale of the damage is not difficult, if you realize that manufacturers, having thoughtlessness, regularly condemn billions of their customers around the world to the giant waste of such valuable resources as time and nerves.
Countering
thoughtlessness is very difficult. The culture of change, the culture of
updates, the culture of creating and testing something new – all of these are
to be significantly adjusted.
This need creates a huge employment niche for personnel capable of coping effectively with thoughtlessness. These are, above all, active veterans of intellectual labor.
However, we are confronted with a vicious circle of thoughtlessness — personnel capable of effectively counteracting thoughtlessness, is effectively hampered by the thoughtlessness of “effective managers” who make decisions, including contracts.
We will try to break this vicious circle, to present the view of experienced people with common sense (moreover, armed with an understanding of the specifics of this niche).
Let us show by living examples what exactly the thoughtlessness is, and how exactly it can be restricted. We focus on examples primarily from the field of IT, including those where habitological analysis could effectively resist thoughtlessness.
We will not be distracted by the analysis of possible reasons for thoughtlessness (such as specific business models and business interests) - they are not reliably verifiable.
However, the axiom of responsible design and testing is obvious to us - thoughtlessness hits the creator's reputation, sometimes fatally.
We hope that our arguments will convince employers who are able to break the above vicious circle of thoughtlessness.
A common task
when working with MS Power BI Desktop is to visualize a specific column in a
table.
To do this, first of all we transfer it to the visualization control panel with the mouse. And, of course, we immediately check how it will look in the report. With amazement, we find that the sum of all the values of this field in the column is used as the field value.
Having coped with the shock, we are exploring all the possibilities of setting the value visualization and are surprised to find that by default values are added together, and in order to cancel the summation, you must specifically specify in the settings "do not summarize".
In other words, an unnatural default rule is built into the product, as a result of which visualization of, say, several fields (a common thing) turns into a tedious manual procedure for canceling this more than strange default, and you have also to find the latter by pre-stuffing bumps and spending nerves.
No wonder strong mental health is one of the most important requirements for a good modern IT worker.
This obvious example of thoughtlessness would certainly not have annoyed MS Power BI Desktop clients if an experienced professional, an IT veteran, could fix it on the way to the client..
With illiterate "by default", we
encounter, alas, too often. Above is just a relatively easy to understand
example. Other examples of illiterate "by default" - a typical
manifestation of thoughtlessness in the field of IT - in
additions.
The level of thoughtlessness in relation to the diagnosis (informing the client about the behavior of the service) will demonstrate by the recent case (as always, from my own practice).
I needed to make that all mail arriving at my email address served by one provider was redirected to my other address served by another provider.
Both providers are more than well-known, deservedly respected firms. The need is usual. The corresponding settings are present on the server of the first provider. Without expecting any issues, I make the necessary manipulations with the settings of the first email address (sender's address), indicating the second address as the recipient. I get a beautiful confirmation of the correctness of the settings.
I send a test message - does not work. The
message is not forwarded to the recipient and there is no observed trace on the
source server. Moreover, it is fundamentally important for us now - no
diagnostics of what is happening, complete silence.
After careful rechecking of my manipulations, I contact the support service of the provider. And I get a following polite answer.
“As a result of the redirection of your mail, all spam that can be received at our address will be redirected to the recipient address formally from our address. Since we treat our reputation with care, we do not recommend our users to use such redirection. ”
I politely ask why a reputable company is
more concerned about the impact on its reputation the possible appearance
of transit spam than their own not
working important standard function, and (more importantly!) the absence of any
diagnostics related to that?
I also ask, and how can I cope with my problem. I get a polite response again, how the problem can be solved - it turns out that the recipient's server can be configured so that he himself takes the mail from the sender's server (for this, the settings on the first server are not important).
And, of course, no reaction to my comment on reputational priorities, in particular, the priority of diagnosis.
Having finally received sensible advice, I coped with the problem and thanked the support service, however, the prioritization of the provider made me once again marvel at the prevalence of thoughtlessness in IT.
Even if for some reason the opportunity to redirect mail really should not be used, then responsible IT professional is simply obliged to find a correct way to notify the user in time about this .
With illiterate diagnostics, we encounter,
alas, too often. Other examples of horrendous diagnostics are another typical
manifestation of thoughtlessness in IT - in
additions.
Surprises of Interface
You received an SMS in a smartphone (for
definiteness, Samsung Galaxy 2 or 4), which you need to forward to another
addressee.
You are already
accustomed to, if you need not just read the SMS and reply, but do something
else - delete, block the sender, etc., then you usually need to open this
message, move your finger to the lower left edge of the screen and press the
emerging grid - pops up an additional menu.
Alas, designers
ignore this habit of yours - in the usual menu there is, say, “delete”, but no
action like “forward” that you need!
You have to spend a lot of time and nerves to find the right menu.
You are trying, say, to poke a message, but instead of a menu, something
arises that you don’t need at all ... Hello sly-wise designers!
In fact, everything is not difficult at all, but it is unusual (if you haven’t done this
before) - you need not to poke, but touch a message and hold your finger a little in this position
- a menu appears where, among others, you
can “forward”.
In fact, it is better to work with messages through this particular
menu. It is true, in any case, for Samsung Galaxy 2 and 4, and also, as the
grateful readers of this post say, for LG G7 and some Chinese
tablets.
I think the interface would be more convenient if it were subjected to habitological expertise. In any case, an experienced designer (IT veteran) who cares about his reputation and respects the client’s habits would enrich his usual menu, even if he considered it necessary to introduce a new.
Comment from 6.10.20. In new models of smartphones from Samsung (for example, in the Galaxy A51 5G), working with messages has become more convenient.
It is important that to update Skype (in the summer of 2018) I was forced, although, having a sad previous experience, I resisted and refused as much as I could until I received a fearsome message that the current version would soon cease to work.
In the updated Skype, I did not find a single new function, but the interface was redone radically.
But the most unpleasant thing for me is that the structure of my Skype contacts was lost. Now both family members, and business partners, and friends - in one long list.
The latest Skype update has made a similar impression on all its users I know.
The result of the update is that the client is annoyed (they steal his/her time and attention from him absolutely brazenly, his/her nerves are spoiled) and scolds with the last words the authors of an unintelligible modification of the habitual interface.
Finally, the most “interesting” for these authors obviously ill by
thoughtlessness is that the client does not give up Skype only until he finds a
worthy competitor to Skype. And also, of course, because you
keep Skype for the time being to communicate with those who continue to use
Skype for various reasons for a while. Well known user inertia.
Competitors, of course, are not asleep. This is WhatsApp,
and Viber, and Facebook,
and Hangouts Meet, and others. So such updates are
suicidal by nature.
I am sure that if IT veterans who are familiar with habitological analysis were on the way from this Skype update to the client, it would have been rejected at the idea stage, saving the most valuable resources of both clients and creators (including the creator reputation).
Wanting to make sure that my video, https://youtu.be/85wQkUUWEZ0,
recently published on YouTube, can be easily found by searching, I launch
Google and Yandex with the keywords “Harri Jokker” (by the way, I indicated
both these words as video tags when it was placed in YouTube).
Result in Google Screenshot of the first page of the result in Google (when the text was written)
Result in Yandex Screenshot of the first page of the
result in Yandex (when the text was written)
We see that both search engines first try to "correct" the request, substituting for my, specific, author's keywords "standard", ordinary, "correct". As a result, Google finds, but gives out a bunch of garbage, which has nothing to do with the request and appeared solely due to the replacement of the original request with “corrected”.
Yandex also “corrects” my request first of all, and my video doesn’t find it at all.
Even if one really wants to intervene-rule, the first thing it would be natural to ask if I want to look for, say, “Harry Joker” instead of “Harri Jokker”. The authors of the search engines do not consider this mandatory - the search engine is sure that has a right not reckon with me - it knows “how to” without asking my opinion.
If it really want to help me, it would be natural to at least order the search results in such a way that the results of the exact query precede the results of the "improved". But this is also not done.
I launch the
same query with the DuckDuckGo search engine, which is not fundamentally involved in
unnecessary “care” about my personal data and preferences, and also frees me
from intrusive advertising.
Result in DuckDuckGo Screenshot of the first page of the result in DuckDuckGo (when the text was written)
We see that it is primarily what we ordered. And, most importantly, the correct answer is given in the first line of the result! And among the video is also (although, alas, also not the first).
I think that the designers of DuckDuckGo designed, and the testers tested exactly what should be designed and tested - the accuracy of matching the search results to the client request.
And they considered the delivery of the results of an exact query as a task of highest priority, and the substitution of this task as a killer defect of the application.
By the way, it is client protection that is
the key competitive advantage of DuckDuckGo.
Successes them in hard struggle.
Comment (6.10.20). As you can easily see, since this section
was written, the deal with the search engines has only gotten worse - already DuckDuckGo does not immediately find the desired video. It
seems that the ideologues of DuckDuckGo decided to
choose a very strange method of competitive struggle - to repeat the mistakes
of competitors.
It seems that humanity as a whole does not
realize the fundamental role of verification for our civilization. Fundamental
not only and not so much in the creation of software products and services, but
also in the implementation of any plans, projects, ideas. What is elementary
for an IT veteran is often completely incomprehensible to people operating with
gigantic resources quite irresponsibly. Not only is the fundamental role of
verification ignored in ensuring the effectiveness of the investment of
resources, but its basic principles are completely not understood and violated.
Although it is quite obvious that the nature and basic principles of
verification are independent of the subject area. Glaring examples of such
misunderstanding in essence, on the surface.
Say,
one of the most important of these principles is that the quality of work
(result) of the inspector (tester) should be evaluated by the quality and number of defects found.
But only! Therefore, the inspector should not have a conflict of interest - if
possible, he should not be interested in the absence of defects. Therefore, it
should not be the author of the plan, project, test idea.
However,
the 2019 Nobel Prize was awarded to people who realized that anti-poverty
projects should in principle be checked to be sure if they reduced poverty in
reality. For a veteran IT, it’s nonsense to spend huge sums on poverty
reduction but not to check whether
the latter has actually decreased as a result of these costs.
Very
often, the knowledge and skills of students are tested by the very teachers who
teach them and are directly interested in demonstrating their pedagogical
skills. Even if they don’t check, they can influence the results of the test
(say, helping verifiables or turning a blind eye to violations).
It
can be objected that IT professionals do not understand the specifics of social
programs, projects, plans. Overall a very weak objection. In reality, IT
penetrate into all spheres of life and IT professionals have to understand
their specifics.
But
more importantly, the basic principles of verification are truly fundamental
and apply to any verification. Another thing is that the specifics of the
subject area, of course, should be taken into account. For example, in social
projects, should be minimized the potential damage from field testing (on
volunteers, etc.).
However, one
should not forget that the test is not only and not necessarily the test run
itself, but also the brainstorming of the testers, the design of test cases,
the evaluation of the results and, most importantly, the search for defects.
Here, the specifics of field look less fundamental.
So, IT veterans can be extremely useful and in
demand:
• To explain the role and principles of
verification in all areas of life (including in the social field).
• To monitor compliance with these principles.
• Brainstorming by (potential) reviewers.
• In designing the verification strategy and
the actual tests.
• In the control of verification results and
conclusions from these results.
More details - in my article “Check, do not be a sucker !!!”.
Thoughtlessness has infected many spheres of our life, but here we
confine ourselves to our sphere - IT
·
Society
as a whole
o
To
recognize the dominant influence of thoughtlessness
·
Thoughtlessness
and incompleteness - birthmarks of explosive changes characteristic of modern
times.
o
To
create norms of behavior in public space that contribute to the commercial
benefit of combating thoughtlessness
·
Responsibility
for stealing customer time and attention
·
Cease
“as is” (lack of responsibility of the creator for the quality of the software
product) in IT - at least for paid services-products.
o
Do
not create counterproductive norms
·
They
steal the most valuable resources and cannot achieve the goals they have set
a.
Cease
“rules” that require removal from the web of fundamentally unremoveabled
b.
Cease censorship under the guise of a struggle for
"morality"
o
Promote
the culture (and even the cult!) of understanding, customer care, beauty of
thoughtfulness - as opposed to haste and thoughtlessness
o
Realize
that habitology is a necessary brake, protecting
·
from
unjustified, careless, often dangerous changes
·
from
blast
a.
not
so much potential blast as real already
· Employers
o Recognize the competitive advantages of capable veterans as fighters against thoughtlessness
o Develop contracts with veteran firms instead of regular hiring to facilitate both the conclusion and the termination of the contract
o To support schools of understanding (in Russian yet) - including as additional vacancies for intellectual work veterans as teachers
o When concluding contracts, take into account the specifics of veterans, including flexible schedule, remote access and part-time work
· Veterans
o to unite and interact in the fight against lack of thinking, including in the labor market
o understand that not every veteran is good, you need to develop and prepare yourself
§ remember that “as is” corrupts
o to fight not for unrealistic justice, but for — quite real — personal and public interest
§ constructive, creative, profitable
Answers to the questions are in
additions.
I am glad to thank Elvira Kiuru, Olga Sviridova-Bondarenko, Alexandr Alexandrov, Vladimir Chukharev and Nikolai Mustonen for support, very helpful comments, questions and constructive discussions.