A victim mentality with technology falls on at least one of these three things:
- something always goes wrong when using technology
- the technology (or its resources) are to blame
- failure is inevitable, the perceived skills is "I am not good with technology"
Being a leader in systems, I always wondered about this. I run into this often, especially observing when people interact with technology, such email, attendance, productivity, and many learning systems.
Yet, this has existed long before computers. Think of the push pull door. Ever wonder why some people always open the door the wrong way? The sign says "Pull" yet the person pushes.
People prone to the victim mentality, tend to be more prone to these circumstance too. They will push more than once on the same door and then blame the door, even when the door is clearly labelled "Pull". Is it the person? Maybe but maybe there is something else...
Perhaps the design of the door is misleading? A blog article, Norman Doors: Don't Know to Push or Pull? Blame Bad Design explores how some doors are confusing and shares a provoking video by Vox.
Some doors that clearly have "Pull" labelled also have a push bar. Other doors with "Push" have a pull handle. That is no doubt confusing. Technology can be the same way.
In technology the words "pull" and "push" can synonymous with "Bug" and "Feature". When interacting with technology, the user encounters something unexpected and then blames the technology. It might referred to as a "glitch" or a "bug" but sometimes, it was done on purpose; an actual "feature".
A good example is the email "reply" button. Users when they press reply to a distribution group email, they expect to reply to the sender and not the whole group. Yes, I know. When a user presses the reply button, the recipient TO: field clearly shows who they are sending it too but the expectation was to reply just to the sender -- not the whole group!
After all, they didn't press "Reply All". Like the Norman doors seen in the video and article, the design can be misleading.
As advocates, we need to be objective and look at technology as the end user does. Maybe the reply to a distribution list is a feature and not a bug, but is it a good design? The way to find out is to have conversations with users that experience these issues.
It is not always the case, but in this case, after listening the perceived victim mentality is rooted from bad design. The "reply" button should go to the sender and not the whole group. My team is now investigating a way to see if this "feature" can be changed.
Little changes like these can avoid bigger issues as well as instill confidence and efficacy in our users. ...we just have to listen.
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