making you fit, or vice versa

[kaigou]

One of my biggest issues with application development is when any driver in the development (whether programmers, designers, or the corporate decision-makers) declare that "users can just get used to this". I end up arguing the opposite, every single time. Like arguing that users do need a halfway button that says "save and continue" on a really long form, or that we can't drop the red asterisk for colorblind users who won't see the red outline on a text-box, or that a series of steps aren't obvious or intuitive. I don't believe you can force users -- or that you even should -- into changing their own perceptions and patterns just because you think it's easier to not include that second button, or because you believe asterisks will "mess up" your pretty styles.

Since an application's purpose is to help someone work more efficiently (whether at a new task or just redoing an old task in a new format, like in-browser), making the users slow down to learn a new pattern-language seems counterproductive. You have to fit the application to the users, and any changes must be slow and subtle. We're all old dogs, really, when it comes to how we interact with patterns.

I see the same argument in fiction, where users (readers) argue for things like "pronounceable names" or dislike settings or conflicts that don't mesh with their expectations. Things like female characters who are androgynous enough that an unfamiliar character might, at first, not be sure of the female character's sex/gender. Or hierarchies that don't work in the same way as those the reader knows. Or even just value systems that aren't in-culture for the reader: different priorities, like setting one's family/parents above one's personal ambitions. Those kinds of stories are the opposite of the application-design style above, because they don't bend to the user's conventions, but expect the reader to bend to mesh with the story.

[paragraph above is badly-phrased, see comments for discussion/elaboration]

Maybe such unfamiliar-named, unfamiliar-setting stories might reach a wider audience if they worked more to meet with reader non/familiarity? Like taking a non-English name and anglicizing it a little differently to make its pronunciation more obvious, more understandable to English-familiar readers? (I am suddenly thinking of Korean names, which seem to be anglicized in any of a variety of ways, and frequently have vowel-combinations that would be one way based on English rules, but are pronounced quite differently.) Another is cultural, where the protagonist notes things that would be taken for granted in the protag's own culture (ie, family over individual or vice versa), but are distinctly different from the reader's culture, and thus are tagged or lampshaded solely for the reader's benefit. (Characters who note the side of the road driven is a huge, if rare, example: who the hell ever stops to think about what side of the road they drive on, if they grew up with that understanding/assumption?)

I recall someone on my dwircle was discussing/reviewing a book set in Japan, I think it was, where the main character noted such cross-culture differences. Those familiar with Japanese culture found it off-putting, it seemed, because these seemed like things a Japanese person would never think to randomly compare. I mean, how often do you go around your native/home culture and say, "I'm getting cucumbers and okra, but you'd never see these in a Russian supermarket"? Those who not quite familiar with Japanese culture seemed to be more forgiving, maybe because they were glad of being given some handle on the differences. It can be hard to assess what's "strange" for a character when the entire setting is strange to you, as the reader.

Bend to the user/reader, or expect the reader/user to bend to the story? What do you think?

Comments

[the_future_modernes]

I think that the issue of privilege is being ignored here. Which users complain about books that don't bend to there specifications and which users had better locate dictionaries and or guess and get on with the story, cause their comprehension of what the fuck is going on is not considered important. Specifically, white Westerners demand hand holding. People from the Global South are expected to consume White Western Stuff and get it and understand it, and if they don't they are considered unintelligent.

[kaigou]

Exactly my reaction, in a very blunt way. As a writer, I want to kick something when someone says, "I don't like having to read stories with [street names, city names, character names, etc] that I can't pronounce." While yelling something involving the verb "to check" and a certain noun, that is.

What stands out is that plenty of people seem willing to do it with science fiction. I wonder if that makes SFF readers the equivalent of highly web-savvy folks who crave the new/unusual over the common patterns of things? Those who don't see reading as equivalent to "something you do as part of the process of some other task" (like the way we see, say, writing email -- it's shouldn't be top-heavy with the learning, because it's something to enable something else, that is, communication).

... sometimes I also wonder if it context makes a difference. If a story is set in, say, a USian locale, then unusual names really would stand out. They'd signify the kid whose parents were hippies, or maybe a new immigrant, or possibly the alien or non-human (I mean that literally, as in SFF). But if a story is set in, say, Bangkok, and the various names aren't in Thai, I'd be kinda surprised. Not to mention lose a lot of the flavor of the setting -- even if I end up tracking different locations solely by the first three letters, because after that my linguistic centers aren't educated in easily differentiating (and remembering) Phetkasem, Phahonyothin, and Phahurat. For instance.

Part of what I'm wondering about is whether there might be a way to signal these things. Something (an introduction, or a foreward, maybe?) that says: "some words have had the spelling changed for easier parsing by English readers" ... if it's possible to have a halfway point. Somewhere along the way, someone's gotta draw those unfamiliar readers in. Not sure this is the best analogy, but kinda like a beginner's version, or a for-dummies... with hopes that then the reader would be ready for, graduate onto, the Real Thing, without that watering. Does that make sense?

Do you think there's a halfway point, or that it such readers shouldn't be pandered at all?

[the_future_modernes]

I...have hit the point where I just don't care about people who are that fucking racist and unable to get the hell out of their boundaries you know? The rest of the world got fucking forced to do it. Your loss if you feel that you need more catering to.

[axelrod]

*claps*

And you can't force someone to step outside their (horrifically claustrophic) comfort zone if they don't want, however much hand-holding you provide. Better to write to the sort of audience you *want* to read your stuff.

[the_future_modernes]

yup yup.

[kaigou]

[sidenote b/c I can't edit until I stop being lazy & reup my acct: I didn't go into privilege because that's sometimes, but not always!, an issue with web applications -- but in web apps, the good ones are very much "work to the user". but you're right, the entire question is pretty much thick with the issue of privilege. entirely grounded in it, even, including in the case of web apps.]

[the_future_modernes]

Yes. Because in the web apps. the designer is forgetting that a lot of people don't have access to computers to spend the hours of time necessary to be familiar with a lot of things. Or are older and coming to the computers as a new-fangled thing, and again don't havethe time to learn and the money to learn. Among other privileges.

[smw]

Granted that I don't know much about programing for users, your stance there seems perfectly reasonable. I don't think the analogy to stories works, though, possibly because the point of stories isn't using a pattern to complete a task: the pattern is, to an extent, the point. (Exceptions being allegory and other stories that do have a educational/pragmatic purpose, but now I'm distracting from my own already rambling comment, here.)

So: the story should be whatever it has to be, and presentation being very firmly tied up in that, I think the issue of what details to include or exclude is just as sticky as that of any other inclusion. Doubtless there are inclusions/exclusions that will make certain people more comfortable, but an author can't reliably predict those, and ultimately can't please all their readership, so it's a futile sort of effort anyway. Might as well go with whatever feels best for the story.

That being said: personally I do think there's something essentially problematic and off-putting about portraying someone else's culture as essentially an unknown. Frankly I think if an author has to go out of their way to point something out – like family being valued more than personal ambitions – in the narration, they're probably doing it wrong anyway.

So: so far as I know, you bend to the user. But you expect the reader to bend to the story (unless the story benefits by being bent).

[kaigou]

You're right, it's hardly the best analogy... but I guess it's one in my head because that's my day-to-day mindset (in re app development) so it's the fastest-to-hand when trying to understand how to lure people into well-written but unfamiliar story-settings.

unless the story benefits by being bent

And isn't deciding when that's true really the hardest part of the entire equation?

[smw]

And isn't deciding when that's true really the hardest part of the entire equation?

Yes. But nobody ever said it was easy. *g*

Less snarky: On a purely personal basis, I choose to write the stories I would like to read, which don't include much bending to the reader (dark secret: I have a character whose fake name includes not only an accent, but a grave accent). Then I hope somebody else understands and can get something out of it. I know that's not a workable solution for everybody, though, because I'm not very other-focused and a lot of authors are, as performers/entertainers. So.

[kaigou]

Sometimes I suspect that my day-job has made me too other-focused, although in itself, my day-job stems from how my life shaped me into the kind of person who'd work so hard at it, in the first place. (Post after this one goes farther on that.)

Which is actually kinda strange, seeing how misanthropic I can be, most of the time.

[smw]

I take for granted that everything to do with one's creativity and expression thereof is going to be a little skew from what one would expect of it. Hard-working and other-focused are certainly not inherently bad traits to have as a writer, though.

And I think I should go read that new post, eh?

[nagasvoice]

My horrid experiences with poor user-interface issues has been caused not by sloppy programmers but by budgets that cut to the bone and don't allow the labor time required to move onward to tweaks that make the thing more easily understood, vs. making it work at all. They also don't allow training time and expect you to figure it out somehow.
Fail.
And not the fault of the programmers.
RE: privilege in reading, genre readers have different base assumptions about what they need to watch for than mainstream fiction readers do, and that's reflected in awkward inexpert reviews by "outsiders".
A subgenre SF & F book might either 1) throw around handwavey timey wimey nonsense, don't look at it too closely, or 2) require an unusually high level of understanding of orbital mechanics and other physics.
An SF & F reader in the first case will skip merrily over the bafflegab by ignoring it, trusting the writer to hold their hand later on when it matters. (Also ignoring a lot of cultural appropriation issues, in a very privileged sort of way.) In the second case, they'll argue with the writer that he didn't get it right, and send them letters with details proving it. (Golden Age sf magazine readers, case in point.)
Whereas, a serious mainstream reader will feel obligated to go investigate the weird place names and figure out what the food referred to might be, and why that food developed right there.
Or else whine about being too tired or stressed to bother.

[kaigou]

When it comes to bad interfaces, I've almost always dealt with tight budgets (even when the results have been good interfaces) -- but I think that's because corporate just barely gets that development is a valuable skill. They'll pay enough for good developers, with some reluctance, and then not get why developers aren't instantly also miracle-workers. (Sometimes I suspect there's a bit of anti-compensation going on in there, err, bad word choice maybe but: something like, the admins are aware they don't have those skills, and are sadly lacking in comprehension, and out of a bit of pique they resent developers. Something like that.)

No, IMO/IME the bad interfaces are most often due to the person/team creating it just plain being unable to step into a less-abled person's shoes to see how the interface would seem to someone who isn't as familiar, or savvy, or able. We do tend to assume that other people are generally like us, unless experience or life has taught us that our experiences aren't universal -- and most developers I've worked with do have privilege to some degree, to be able to develop those blindspot/assumptions. Usability and accessibility are built into an interface from the beginning, after all, and once you learn/accept those parameters, it takes no more time to do it right than it did to do it wrong.

Strange, isn't it? SFF readers do seem to be more willing to tolerate experimentation (of the science kind, of the style kind, and so on) but they're right up there with romance readers when it comes to cheerfully ignoring privilege issues. Just each genre tends to a different type -- SFF, it's appropriation, while romance, it's gender-issues. To generalize very, very broadly.

Bafflegab: that is an AWESOME word. Taking it!

[nagasvoice]

Bafflegab is not an original term with me, I first heard it from some oldtime fans, used in the context of nonsense tech on Doctor Who...original BBC black and white Who, that is, not sure which Doctor.
And yes, we definitely had some issues on the interface developers doing the "you're not actually worthy of sonsideration as a human.
Aka, "Opposing Side's Opinion is Meaningless, Shut Up and Sit Down."
Because, y'know, it might have meant acknowledging problems that had to be fixed were not going to allow the project to go live on schedule, so we will pretend there aren't any.
Until after the go-live hoopla is over and the actual users have put in their complaints about getting it fixed (you can wait a year for major pieces of work to be resumed, thank you, we'll let you know when we get to it) and the actual process is completely borked.
As in, not meeting legally-mandated deadlines, borked.
But hey, not our deveopers' problem, right?

[axelrod]

Art and stories are often *meant* to bend our minds. If a reader doesn't want their mind bent, that's fine and they shouldn't read something that critiques the kyriarchical structure of their own culture, or a work of experimental fiction or whatever. I mean, I don't read experimental writing often because it's usually a lot of work but I sure as hell don't think experimental writing is a bad thing.

And I just think your whole analogy doesn't hold up. Yeah, writers are going to think about their audience and their audience's expectations and weight to what extent they want to play into or against those expectations. Programmers should also be thinking about what their hypothetical users need/want and *should only play into those expectations, not against them*. Because a program is a tool, and a story is a story.

dislike settings or conflicts that don't mesh with their expectations. Things like female characters who are androgynous enough that an unfamiliar character might, at first, not be sure of the female character's sex/gender. Or hierarchies that don't work in the same way as those the reader knows.

I guess some stories don't challenge readers and aren't meant to, but those usually aren't the stories I'm interested in reading and they sure as hell aren't the kind of stories I'm interested in writing.

Also, I am a female who is always misgendered - usually assumed to be a woman and occasionally assumed to be a man, and it's not atypical for me to inspire a double-take (I notice this especially when I use the women's bathroom, which on the whole is less awkward than what might happen in most men's bathrooms). So basically, you're describing my own lived experience and that of everyone I encounter, but implying that it's as Other as "hierarchies that don't work in the same way as those the reader knows". I find your use of that example off-putting.

[kaigou]

The example is off-putting -- or maybe I should say, I find it off-putting when anyone has an issue with it. I mean, in the sense that some readers react to some stories as though these are all Other, and I don't see them as Other in the first place. Does that make more sense?

I'm not sure I explained that well, so here's an alternate way of putting it. If, in a story, the character finds item (or way, or food, or belief, or practice, or appearance, or etc) A to be "within the realm of This" -- where "this" is the opposite of "Othered" -- then to me, the This becomes my This for the duration of reading. I am willing to set aside (and sometimes, to be smacked with) my own personal boundaries of This/Other, and rest for awhile in someone else's shoes where their This/Other is not mine.

It's just... really really hard to take a critique where the bulk of the story-critiques consist of people shoving their personal This/Other onto my story, where the This/Other is not theirs. But for the character, it's a consistent This/Other. The fact that it doesn't mesh with the reader's This/Other is -- to me -- one of the good parts of fiction. It's just really hard to remember I believe that, when I'm getting critiques treating this belief as though I'm presenting a bad style of fiction.

[axelrod]

It wasn't clear to me overall what direction you were approaching the matter from. Were you presenting us with simple hypotheticals, in order to get us thinking, or did these examples represent your own way of thinking at all. So I didn't know how to read it when you used androgynous females as an example of something Other. If I didn't know you better, based on other posts of yours I've read, I would have made some unflattering assumptions. And I do wish you'd signaled better what you were trying to accomplish with this post.

It's just... really really hard to take a critique where the bulk of the story-critiques consist of people shoving their personal This/Other onto my story, where the This/Other is not theirs. But for the character, it's a consistent This/Other.

Oh, I can see why: almost certainly a display of privilege, and also missing the point of what you as a writer were trying to do, which is to create cohesive characters with their own internal logic and sets of assumptions about how the world works.

[kaigou]

If I didn't know you better, based on other posts of yours I've read, I would have made some unflattering assumptions. And I do wish you'd signaled better what you were trying to accomplish with this post.

I think I'm just really out of practice with posting, at all. I haven't been communicating much with anyone in the past month or so, for various reasons. I hadn't expected it to be a struggle, to get back into the habit, but apparently it is. Hopefully the duration of foot-in-mouth disease will be limited, and the habit will come back with enough practice. (Or, at least, as much of a mediocre habit as I ever had, that is.)

[axelrod]

*nod* I mean, it's ok. I had a few minutes of "I AM BEING OTHERED!!!" but keep in mind I get pissed off easily and it's all cool now :) And I really like your posts :)

[dsgood]

In L. Sprague De Camp's historical novel An Elephant for Aristotle, the Greek narrator comments on such strange foreign customs as shaking hands and celebrating birthdays. Which is one way of getting around the "characters commenting on something they wouldn't notice about their own culture/society" problem.

[kaigou]

Oh, I've seen it done well. Considering that Barry Eisler's Rain series is about a Japanese-American mercenary (who is really only American by birth and happenstance, but comes across as solidly Japanese in terms of mind/heart), Eisler does an amazing job of taking a very Japanese character and making him, and his choices, explicable. Without smacking you in the face or creating predictable contrasts to let you see where Rain is making a "Japanese" choice compared to what an American might have done.

But I think that also requires someone who really knows the culture (or character) well, to have that assured style that as the reader, you can accept that the rules won't be switched up on you while you're still learning.

[thejeopardymaze]

One of my biggest issues with application development is when any driver in the development (whether programmers, designers, or the corporate decision-makers) declare that "users can just get used to this"...

I don't believe you can force users -- or that you even should -- into changing their own perceptions and patterns just because you think it's easier to not include that second button, or because you believe asterisks will "mess up" your pretty styles."


This describes the problem with GNOME project so well, and at this point I'm grateful Android might eventually make those types of desktop systems for the Linux kernel moot in a few years. I've seen rants by GNOME leaders in the past on OS News complaining about stupid users instead of addressing user's concerns I'd never want to touch their software with a ten foot pole.

I can't comment on the literary analogy, just had a need to vent.

[kaigou]

I've seen rants by GNOME leaders in the past on OS News complaining about stupid users instead of addressing user's concerns

Believe me, I've dealt with that kind of talk with developers many, many, many times in my lifetime. And to think originally I had intended to get my PhD in conflict resolution, and then decided against it because I wasn't sure it was for me. What have I done, in my career? Pretty much nothing but conflict resolution -- except I'm not in classic warzones trying to convince two opposing peoples to talk to each other. (Though where I stand between business & development sure feels like a warzone, sometimes.)

One thing I have learned is that as long as the person/group with the decision-power sees the other group as less-than-valid or less-than-valuable (or even, bluntly, as less-than-human) then you won't get anywhere. If you can't even get someone to grant the other side basic human dignity, there's little hope of a good resolution... which is when I have no qualms going with subterfuge and sneakiness to improve the interface and bypass the decision-makers completely. My goal, after all, isn't world peace, it's just a better interface, and sometimes the people involved are determined not to improve, so I improve what I can and I move along.

Okay, so maybe it's good I didn't go into conflict resolution after all, since subterfuge would probably not be an acceptable route to, say, resolving the Turkish/Greek Cypriot situation. Heh.

[thejeopardymaze]

If you can't even get someone to grant the other side basic human dignity, there's little hope of a good resolution...

That is, funnily enough, one of my main problems with the promoters of forgiveness for everything, no matter how horrid the act. If the victimizer isn't even seriously willing to face up to their wrongdoing and treat the victim as an actual human being who was seriously wronged, why should the victim have to even consider the possibility?

There are other things, like many of the claims said by forgiveness promoters about forgiveness I've yet to see be held under serious scientific scrutiny (if you read the rhetoric they make it almost sounds like it practically cures AIDS and PTSD, how is this different from snake oil salesmen?).

[dragonhand]

It's the author's job to write what's important to them. It's the reader's job to read the story as it's told. How am I supposed to learn things about other times, places, people and cultures if they merge them with my own? With any book, comic or otherwise, I expect to be dropped into whatever the situation is, with whoever the characters are, and run along with them till I start getting the rules of the world they live in. If I stick with it, I'll eventually get it. Hopefully I'll also start to learn more about the culture until a lot of what's normal for then becomes normal for me as well. Then the next book I read from that background will be more familiar, and even more familiar in the book after that.

That said, I'd really like to know how to pronounce names correctly, so I don't feel dim for having it set in my head all wrong and then learning otherwise, but that's easily fixed with a pronunciation guide in the back of the book.

[kaigou]

This is why you read a lot of SFF, too. And I totally agree about the pronunciation guide. I'm not so stressed when it's a clearly made-up name (in which case, I feel free to make up my own way to say it!) but when it's a real name, I do want to know. Besides, I have had the opportunity to tell someone who's been startled because I knew how to pronounce their (uncommon in English) name: "Ah, I read a great book where the hero had the same name."

(Aside: it just occurred to me that I should be telling you to read Hokuton-punch's journal, who's in, uhm, York, or thereabouts, studying medieval calligraphy (writing?). Lots of posts about Carolingian and, uhm, other writing styles. Just FYI, FWIW.)

[dragonhand]

This is how I started learning about Japan, too, and I've been reading a lot more non fiction from other countries as well. But I like that SFF has paved the way for me to feel excited to be immersed into an unfamiliar setting or culture.

Carolingian? oooooh. Good hand. I'll have to go stalk her. ^_^

[staranise]

I feel like interface design and stories are almost diametrically opposed for this purpose. You want to make interfaces easy for people to use, and therefore bend to the user, because using the interface isn't the point; it's just a tool to get somewhere. On the other hand, if someone finds a story difficult reading, they're not kept from doing anything; their life isn't made harder because they put the book down. There's not nearly the kind of imperative, in writing stories.

[kaigou]

I agree they're diametrically opposed -- to some degree. But that perhaps by looking at how we try to design interfaces to people, and how people respond, I might understand a little better how it is I write, since I can't not write towards a user. Or maybe I should say: for a lot of people, the two positions are opposed. But not for me; for me, they're much more aligned than I'd realized.

[cyphomandra]

I agree it's not a perfect analogy - I don't think end-users of applications go looking for challenging interfaces, for example, in the way that certain readers go looking for experimental fiction or take a chance on something written with a non-classic structure (but maybe some do? Hmm). In fiction, genre expectations set a lot of this up, and it's interesting what is and isn't widely accepted. Science fiction and fantasy readers may well expect unfamiliar vocabulary, but be uncomfortable with present tense. Detective stories often go for unusual settings, some sorts of action thrillers include vast amounts of technical detail... Personally, I expect more explanation if it's completely made-up. Otherwise, there's always Google.

I avoided examples of non-privileged characters for a privileged audience above, but one example which bugs me, if possibly a bit tangential, is the massive lack of animated movies with non-human female leads (my experience is pretty much all English language originals, but Chicken Run and The Last Unicorn are the only two I know of). I've always seen this as being a step too far for the assumed audience - either nonhuman, or female, but not, not possibly both. Arrgh.

[kaigou]

Seems to me that SFF readers are kinda like the really crazy-savvy users on the web, who want the latest, greatest, and have the newest gadgets and go bonkers over the really opaque interfaces. Partly because they're just savvy like that, and partly (I suspect, sometimes) because it's a bit of cachet to claim you 'get' that obscure/opaque steep-curved interface while everyone else is floundering. It's like the slick interface web2.0 version of, "I only use the command line" geekiness. (Or to quote someone's post about it, "she was already web3.0 when the rest of the world was on AOL.")

Now you've got me thinking of any examples of animated movies with female AND non-human leads. My area is Eastern Asia animation, and... wow. Even Miyazaki (who pretty much consistently does female leads, if not a single female as the lead) is solidly human-female, or at least mostly so. (I presume "witch" is not meant as "not human".) Female and non-human... actually, the only one I can think of are the Korean animated films I've seen (a total of two -- there's an absolutely miniscule selection of homegrown Korean anime, really). Sadly, both of those sucked, but Yobi the Five-Tailed Fox was a definite example of female + nonhuman. If I think of any others, I'll post, but... I can't, so far.