Why People Stick With Windows
Jan 28th, 2007 by Greg Bulmash
Though I recently switched to Mac, I've been thinking of why I wouldn't reccomend it to my parents. I came to an understanding of the barriers to changing your OS or software, based in large part on how people learn to use those things.
People who have learned the underlying concepts ("conceptual users") can more easily switch, because they can pretty quickly figure out how the new system works.
But the much larger percentage of users ("procedural users") learned how to work their OS and their programs by rote, following step-by-step instructions.
When you change the steps, you basically knock procedural users back to square one. You have to retrain them in the new steps.
But once the conceptual users have figured out the new system and the procedural users have been trained on the new system, the pain (and loss of productivity) doesn't end.
They've all formed habits for performing certain tasks, ingrained through repetition. There's a follow-on period of adjustment where the old habits have to be broken and new habits have to gain a toehold, before the users stop grumbling about the new system and regain or exceed their former levels of productivity.
If you want an example, find someone who has never used a trackball mouse and isn't familiar with the concept, then swap the trackball for their regular mouse. They'll start moving the trackball mouse base, wondering why the mouse pointer isn't working. Once you explain to them how the trackball works, show it to them, and let them get a feel for it, walk away and watch from a distance. They'll still move the base. When it doesn't produce results, they'll remember that they are supposed to roll the ball instead.
It will take hours, if not days, before they stop grabbing the trackball mouse like a regular mouse. They have spent years grabbing a mouse and moving it, and it has become almost reflexive. They have learned through extensive repetition that the desire to move the pointer on the screen is satisfied by grabbing and moving the brick of plastic beside the keyboard. And every time they do the wrong thing, it wastes time and makes them feel frustrated or stupid for getting it wrong. The first few times it may be a laugh. The 28th time, it’s an irritant.
Therein lies the problem. It's not whether Mac or Linux can do the same things Windows does or have applications that can do the same things your Windows apps do. A trackball mouse and regular mouse both move the pointer. They both get the job done, but they require retraining and habit breaking to switch from one to the other, then gain a sufficient level of proficiency and comfort to merely get back to how productive you were before the switch.
Mac and Linux could do all the same things, plus backflips, faster and better than Windows. But if they require different steps from the user to get them done, they bring financial and emotional pain into the big picture.
People don't like pain. They go to great lengths to avoid it. They'll even go so far as to bear a minor pain on a long term basis rather than endure a greater pain in the short term to cure it (i.e. putting off surgery). Change of this sort, the kind that requires re-training and habit breaking, is painful. And that's why people stick with Windows. Even if Windows hurts, it hurts less than switching, and it's a pain that is familiar and they know they can bear.
In markets where Microsoft is dominant, it will remain dominant until its competitors make switching painless, or sticking with Microsoft becomes so painful that even the pain of switching will be a relief.
You forgot the initial "pain" of paying a lot more for a Mac, not a trivial consideration when a PC is already seen by many older people as a luxury. Not to mention the fear that it won't be compatible with stuff that their family, friends, coworkers, etc., will send them.
With the move to Intel, Mac's have come down in price enough to be fairly price-equivalent to comparably equipped Windows machines. On top of that, this isn't just about Mac. It's about Linux too. And there, you can run Linux on inexpensive hardware.
As for compatibility... I've often had to deal with people sending me files created on Windows that I couldn't view/read on Windows because I didn't have the software they were using to create them.
If you send someone a PowerPoint .ppt format file, they're only going to be able to view it if they've got the more expensive version of Office that includes PowerPoint or if you've gone to the Microsoft site and downloaded a PowerPoint viewer.
Just being on Windows is no guarantee of compatibility. And both Mac and Linux have software that can read most Microsoft Office formats as well as many other major file formats. The problem comes with proprietary formats that don't enjoy wide support.
Wow. I came up with the same idea a while back, as a difference in learning style, and I called it "conceptual" and "sequential" learning.
I told a friend, once, that you can tell which one someone is by handing them a brand-new remote control.
If they look at the remote control, and begin using it immediately because they already know what the buttons are for, then likely, they're "conceptual."
If, instead, they take it from you, and can't figure out how to use it because it's "not like their other one," you've got a "sequential" (the same thing as your "procedural").
As an IT professional, these "sequentials" frustrate me to no end, because they ask the same questions over and over. Why? Because, without grokking basic concepts like "files and folders" and "browser" it's impossible to memorize step-by-step instructions for everything a computer can do!
Conceptuals don't memorize, they categorize. This gives them excellent pattern-recognition skills, and the ability to absorb information at an exponential rate.
I've got a hunch that this difference is a shortcoming of teaching methods. I think that if we start young, and encourage categorization and pattern-recognition in learning instead of rote memorization, it will help the future generation out a lot!