So my computer crashed last week, and I lost all my iTunes. Great. Even better is the fact that when I try to plug my iPod into my computer to charge it, the iTunes tries to sync my iPod, further erasing any music I had left on the device itself. Luckily I was able to pull the plug before I lost any music. After struggling for over an hour with various online "do-it-yourself" websites telling my various ways to replace my lost songs on my computer with the ones on my iPod, I realized just how true todays lecture was on the value of writing instructions.
Many of the sites I visited were for a much more technically adept person than myself, meaning they could most likely recode their iPod or hack into it. This experience gave me some insight to being a secondary audience and having to figure out what the primary audience already knows in order to complete the task. I obviously had to understand a great deal of technical computer jargon or have various programs at my disposal to complete the task, and the knowledge of how to utalize them without setting my pc on fire. Luckily for me, I finially stumbled across a site that had simple instructions at a level that I could comprehend and follow. Thank goodness someone managed to put together a set of steps with a target audience, me, in mind. Who knew a day in lecture could be related to a discombobulation of events that thankfully resulted in me getting my Satchmo back in one piece.
You are so right. Most people who buy entertainment gadgets are not up to par with fixing them. Like you said, it can be as easy as a few steps, or as hard as making the dern thing itself. I myself am about average when it comes to manipulating technology. The hardest part about looking for instructions is picking through the different knowledge levels to find one that meets your needs. The world needs a universal dummy and advanced instruction manual.
ReplyDeleteThis happened to me!! I spent about an hour just looking for directions that I understood at all. I finally managed to find instructions addressed to me...probably the same ones that you found. haha
ReplyDeleteApple has worked so hard to create a product that is simple and so fully automated that i doesn't leave much room for explanation. The minute something doesn't go according to plan the user is lost as to what to do next. I love apple, but they, like every other company, are far from perfect. I think rather than totally automating everything if they were to provide the user with some knowledge through instructions they would be doing the right thing.
ReplyDeleteI once lost all my music by plugging in my ipod to someone elses computer. It automatically downloaded all of my friends music and deleted mine. Before I realized this was happening most of my music was gone. Luckly I was able to find some instructions online telling me how to manually add music to my ipod, so I was able to go home and get my music off my computer again! Fortunatly I ended up with twice the music I had to begin with.
ReplyDeleteoh gosh that really sucks. It happens to people all the time as is evident by everyone's comments. There really should be a central location on the apple site about the best way to handle a situation like that. But of course people are always assuming things about there audience, which is where a person makes the most mistakes. You can't assume that everyone knows how to recode and back an ipod. Thanks for sharing.
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ReplyDeleteIm writing my instructions on just what you are having problems with "how to upload music from your ipod to your computer"
ReplyDeleteMaybe you can give my instructions some legitimate feedback now that you have another source in which to compare them.