On 16 Feb 2001, at 15:52, Warhurst, SI (Spencer) wrote:

>The downside, of course, is that when
>something does go wrong the users have not got the technical knowledge to
>understand & explain what happened, and you could argue that if they did
>understand what went wrong they are half-way towards fixing it themselves!

The distinction may lie in the cultural attitude.  The above could just
as easily apply to going to the doctor.  If the user does it to themselves
eg: downloads a piece of crap (pc) or consumes contaminated dope (body)
both help desks/triage screens can expect a certain degree of non-candor.
The difference manifests itself in recognition of the problem.  "You're
overweight with high blood pressure and need to diet" is understood.  "Your
hard-disk is full and you need to delete some GIF's" often gets some answer
like "I'm not a computer guru, could you do it for me" or my personal
favorite "could you say that again in plain English?".

                                      -Kary