Eric Schwarz had a piece yesterday reacting to Microsoft’s plans for a “remember everything” feature upcoming in Windows.

This fact that this feature is basically on by default and requires numerous steps to disable is going to create a lot of problems for people, especially those who click through every privacy/permission screen and fundamentally don’t know how their computer actually operates—I’ve counted way too many instances where I’ve had to help people find something and they have no idea where anything lives in their file system (mostly work off the Desktop or Downloads folders). How are they going to even grapple with this?

I was really struck by the recognition that so many computer users “don’t know how their computer actually operates”. Modern PCs are layer cakes of abstraction, from the electrons flying through impossibly-small transistors, to the drivers that control the hardware, to the software that renders bits on disk, to representations as files and folders.

I struggle with the idea of using a tool as complex as a computer without having some kind of mental model for how it works. And more importantly, I struggle with the idea of using a complex system without investing the time to make sure I have built one.

I don’t want to generalize over-much, but it’s a pattern I’ve seen play out as often as Eric has: people whose livelihoods depend on the computer they use, spraying their files onto the desktop, unable to parse the messages the OS displays, helpless to troubleshoot networking issues (or even knowing they have networking issues).

It reminds me of something I learned in Steve Krug’s great book, Don’t Make Me Think, which is nominally about web usability, but could apply to all software. Writing about the way users encounter a web page, he says:

…most of the time we don’t choose the best option—we choose the first reasonable option, a strategy known as satisficing. As soon as we find a link that seems like it might lead to what we’re looking for, there’s a very good chance that we’ll click it.

I think that explains how most users learn and use software. Instead of knowing how it all works, they are constantly scanning and searching for the first thing that seems like it’ll just work so they can move on. As Krug further notes, “they muddle through”.

I know this feeling quite well, if I’m being honest. Web sites are like computers in a certain way: every one is different, has its own rules and you must be steeped in its ways to understand and use it. I find myself satisficing to get done what I need.

But PC operating systems? It’s worth spending the time to build a mental model. Give it your time, and you’ll get back so much more: expertise to make it work exactly as you need it.