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

Started by Syt, August 22, 2011, 06:20:17 AM

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Syt

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

QuoteCrazy: 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.

:lol:
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11B4V

I'm only the 2nd generation standing upright. Could you explain this a little better? :huh:
"there's a long tradition of insulting people we disagree with here, and I'll be damned if I listen to your entreaties otherwise."-OVB

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"We've reached one of our phase lines after the firefight and it smells bad—meaning it's a little bit suspicious... Could be an amb—".

grumbler

Quote from: 11B4V on August 22, 2011, 06:29:24 AM
I'm only the 2nd generation standing upright. Could you explain this a little better? :huh:
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?
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11B4V

QuoteWhat 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".  :huh:
"there's a long tradition of insulting people we disagree with here, and I'll be damned if I listen to your entreaties otherwise."-OVB

"Obviously not a Berkut-commanded armored column.  They're not all brewing."- CdM

"We've reached one of our phase lines after the firefight and it smells bad—meaning it's a little bit suspicious... Could be an amb—".

11B4V

Ah, I typed in "blumkin" and hit search, then the control+F
"there's a long tradition of insulting people we disagree with here, and I'll be damned if I listen to your entreaties otherwise."-OVB

"Obviously not a Berkut-commanded armored column.  They're not all brewing."- CdM

"We've reached one of our phase lines after the firefight and it smells bad—meaning it's a little bit suspicious... Could be an amb—".

Warspite

" SIR – I must commend you on some of your recent obituaries. I was delighted to read of the deaths of Foday Sankoh (August 9th), and Uday and Qusay Hussein (July 26th). Do you take requests? "

OVO JE SRBIJA
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The Brain

So the solution to poorly designed user interface is training? :bleeding:
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Ed Anger

Stay Alive...Let the Man Drive

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.
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garbon

Not sure why it is surprising that many people don't know keyboard shortcuts.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

PDH

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

Quote from: PDH on August 22, 2011, 08:48:02 AM
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.
Stay Alive...Let the Man Drive

garbon

Quote from: Ed Anger on August 22, 2011, 08:49:18 AM
Quote from: PDH on August 22, 2011, 08:48:02 AM
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!" :angry:
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

mongers

Quote from: Warspite on August 22, 2011, 07:20:49 AM
Dammit, I need Ctrl-F in real life.

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