Camera Store - The Hell of Retail

Big Scary Computers (kind of a continuation of the previous post)

And while we’re on the subject of computers and of people too dumb to use a touchscreen…

Our store currently offers print-from-home. No, not just selling printers. We have an online service where you go to a website, upload pictures, fill out an online form, enter your credit card info, and then stop by the store a couple hours later to pick up your already-paid-for pictures.

For some people, though, that is apparently too hard.

A company that makes digital-photo-organization software is working on integrating print-from-home into their software. In the same screen that would show you some folder of your pictures (you know, “My Grandson’s College Graduation” or whatever), there would be a button like “click here to have this picture printed at the photo shop”. Every now and then, one or two programmers stop by the shop to see how the latest trial-run worked. It’s always the same guys, so I’ve been asking them about this project. I ask them why the current method is not good enough, and they say “Oh, you know, this is for people who are not necessarily that computer savvy”.

Since when is knowing how to use WINDOWS being computer-savvy? Who needs a PROGRAM just to ORGANIZE their friggin’ digital pictures when Windows (or Mac OS-whatever) allows you to make folders, name them, name the files in them, structure the folders and files however you want, and view all folders and files in big friendly thumbnails?

It’s like PictBrige, EasyShare, one-button-downloading… All these technologies just to move your files around. Good lord, since when is knowing how to use Windows so friggin’ hard? Oh, look, I can create a folder, name it, rename the files in it, and put some of them on a disk to take to the photo shop! (By dragging them to the CD Drive icon and clicking on “Record files to CD”). I can even delete the pictures on my camera’s memory! I’m so computer savvy! Why is so much thought put into allowing people to remain unfamiliar with drag-and-drop interfaces? (Oh, wait, it must be because people are stupid. I should read my own blog).

But seriously, it’s because people are willing to pay a little more to have to learn/do a little less. The higher price of photo prints that comes from having my store pay for this foolproof software is gladly accepted by all these old people whose worst nightmare is learning how to burn a data CD. Maybe there should be a tech-savvy price and a tech-fearing price, so that if you did things the HARD way (sending your pictures to us over the internet using – gasp – Windows and your email program, or burning your own CD instead of having us do it for you), you get a discount so that the tech-fearing old people have to pay extra for us to keep developing foolproof software that is always “too complicated” anyways. Politically, I strongly believe that everyone should pay for a country’s education and health care, so I’m a fan of high taxes and European-style near-socialism. But when it comes to people’s stupidity, I strongly believe you and I should not have to pay extra for it. In the ideal world, hospitals would be free, unless you gave yourself lung cancer from smoking and diabetes from eating McDonald’s. If that is fair, then why should we all pay for some people’s refusal to learn how to use a mouse?

And in a slight change of subject: Back to the touchscreen system in our store. When you first touch the screen, it changes to show you three big "buttons", each about 1/3 of the screen: One shows an arrow pointing from a CD and a bunch of memory cards to a bunch of prints, and under it is written "Print pictures from digital". On the next button there's just a huge CD, and it says "Save digital pictures to CD" under it. And on the last, it shows greeting cards and calendars, and under it "Make greeting cards and calendars" or something.

You would not believe how many of the people who bring their pictured in on CD touch the "Save digital pictures to CD" button. Some of them ask me for help, and touch it as I approach. Other come ask me for help asking why there are no options related to printing. They just see the big CD and press the button. You may say that's just bad interface design. I say it's bad reading skills, because it SAYS RIGHT THERE... Ah, never mind. I keep expecting people to THINK, to READ instructions... Silly me.

posted by Remus