[Hokusai]

"Learned helplessness is behavior exhibited by a subject after enduring repeated aversive stimuli beyond their control."

The key part is beyond their control. As a society we are being trained to see software beyond our control. "The algorithm" decides. Many non software engineers fail to see that behind each software decision there is a company that can change it.

Learned helplessness is dangerous even just because improvement becomes impossible when people just accepts software like if it was the physical laws of the universe.

[sumtechguy]

It is amazing how this sort of thing sticks too. One cell company I used to work for has terrible GUI's. I mean they are actually infuriating to use. It has been that way for at least a decade. I was reminded of how bad they were yesterday when I had to use that GUI again to fiddle something in my account. I told my wife 'no wonder the line is 20 people deep at the stores no one wants to mess with it'.

Does no one do usability testing anymore? Sit down and make someone use the software. Not 'do x and y happens, call it a day' I mean end to end 'hey here is a task figure out how to do it' then sit on your hands and take notes while they try to do it? Bad interface design makes people feel powerless. That powerless feeling makes people give up and just accept that 'computers are complex'. Then once you are in that mode little changes become a huge deal.

[nerdponx]

> Does no one do usability testing anymore? Sit down and make someone use the software. Not 'do x and y happens, call it a day' I mean end to end 'hey here is a task figure out how to do it' then sit on your hands and take notes while they try to do it? Bad interface design makes people feel powerless. That powerless feeling makes people give up and just accept that 'computers are complex'. Then once you are in that mode little changes become a huge deal.

The company probably sees usability testing as an unnecessary expense that doesn't improve their bottom line.