Google dude: 90% of people don't know how to use CTRL+F

[Syt]

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/crazy-90-percent-of-people-dont-know-how-to-use-ctrl-f/243840/

Crazy: 90 Percent of People Don't Know How to Use CTRL+F

This week, I talked with Dan Russell, a search anthropologist at Google, about the time he spends with random people studying how they search for stuff. One statistic blew my mind. 90 percent of people in their studies don't know how to use CTRL/Command + F to find a word in a document or web page! I probably use that trick 20 times per day and yet the vast majority of people don't use it at all.

"90 percent of the US Internet population does not know that. This is on a sample size of thousands," Russell said. "I do these field studies and I can't tell you how many hours I've sat in somebody's house as they've read through a long document trying to find the result they're looking for. At the end I'll say to them, 'Let me show one little trick here,' and very often people will say, 'I can't believe I've been wasting my life!'"

I can't believe people have been wasting their lives like this either! It makes me think that we need a new type of class in schools across the land immediately. Electronic literacy. Just like we learn to skim tables of content or look through an index or just skim chapter titles to find what we're looking for, we need to teach people about this CTRL+F thing.

Google itself is trying to teach people a little something with their AGoogleADay.com campaign, but the ability to retrieve information via a search engine is actually much bigger than the search engine itself. We're talking about the future of almost all knowledge acquisition and yet schools don't spend nearly as much time on this skill as they do on other equally important areas.

[11B4V]

I'm only the 2nd generation standing upright. Could you explain this a little better?

[grumbler]

I'm only the 2nd generation standing upright. Could you explain this a little better?

What do you mean?  Explain how pushing the ctrl and F keys simultaneously gives you a search text box, or explain what a "search anthropologist" is?

[11B4V]

What do you mean?  Explain how pushing the ctrl and F keys simultaneously gives you a search text box, or explain what a "search anthropologist" is?

I know about the control/f thing.

I typed "Butt" into the little window and it read, "text not found". 

[11B4V]

Ah, I typed in "blumkin" and hit search, then the control+F

[Warspite]

Dammit, I need Ctrl-F in real life.

[The Brain]

So the solution to poorly designed user interface is training?

[Ed Anger]

I just pound my keyboard and scream profanities.

[CountDeMoney]

A lot of people don't know what their emergency brake is for, either.  BFD.

[Josquius]

I believe it. It really is a shockingly little known trick. I remember back before I knew about it when I was a kid...damn that sucked, trawling through huge documents to find certain things.

[garbon]

Not sure why it is surprising that many people don't know keyboard shortcuts.

[PDH]

I am not going to learn keyboard shortcuts until they make one that allows me to erase all of tim's posts.

[Ed Anger]

I am not going to learn keyboard shortcuts until they make one that allows me to erase all of tim's posts.

Did you see that abortion of fan art he posted in the off topic topic? Jesus wept.

[garbon]

I am not going to learn keyboard shortcuts until they make one that allows me to erase all of tim's posts.

Did you see that abortion of fan art he posted in the off topic topic? Jesus wept.

Right. That was like him saying "God Damn America!"

[mongers]

Dammit, I need Ctrl-F in real life.

All things eventually turn up; how long are you prepared to wait ?