Regarding the "is it plugged in?" question. A great anecdote I heard was that the support person on the phone asked if the power plug was clean. The user was confused. The support person told them to unplug it, blow the dust out of the holes, and plug it back in. This fixed the problem!<p>The issue was that the power plug was in the socket, but too loose to connect. Somehow, the support person figured this was the case (prior experience?) and knew that if he asked "is it plugged in?" he would get a "yes". Taking the power plug out and putting it back in ensured that it would be in properly. But just asking the person to do that can be faced with push-back or even a lie that they did it (since the power plug <i>obviously</i> was already connected).<p>I always chuckled at the story but did not think it was true. I worked tech support while attending university. One time, I had an on-site where the monitor just stopped working. We went through the standard question on the phone, including asking if it is plugged in, and of course it was. Could not get it fixed over the phone. Once on-site, it turned out it was a loose power cable.<p>I could have avoided an on-site had I only asked them to blow the dust out of the power cable. Maybe this should be added to the questionnaire.
I would add a "I don't know" option. Family members who need tech support from me are generally unable to answer things like:<p>> Is your device up to date?<p>First, they aren't familiar with what is considered a "device". Does it mean the calendar app on the phone (where they see observed problems)? Surely it can't mean their iPad, because that's an iPad and not a "device". The "device" must be the charger thingy. What does "updated" mean? The clock and date are correct, is that what it means? The SIM card is just a week old, so that means device is updated, right? Or they updated their calendar app, so then all is good. Or maybe "device" refers to the internet box at home? If they correctly identify it as "probably not updated", the next instruction is equally opaque:<p>> Update it.<p>This needs a "how?" answer, in addition to "okay".
So the first 2 are rebooting and making sure it has power. The third is "up to date". I do quite a bit of tech support for my family and neither of those issues are really issues. The #1 issue for me is "this free app I installed wanted to install a browser addon and now I see ads everywhere". The #2 is "this free app I installed hijacks everything on my Mac to show ads".<p>I've spent countless hours educating them about malware, but how can they know that the app that promises to make their computer fast again is malware?
I think this needs a "I don't know" option that leads to links to support pages. I've certainly dealt with friends and family who don't know how to check if their software is up to date and update it if it's not.<p>I also think the "Did this fix your problem?" prompts after saying "Yes" are redundant.
Well... usually the device works somehow and they are incapable of giving a good description of the problem. That's the real problem.<p>I used the tool like my mother would and had these Problems:<p>1. the device is on! Of course I know it's plugged in!<p>2. "is the device up to date". What does that mean? The clock seems to be going correctly! It's not the newest model, but fairly recent...<p>3. I now have the google results for "the titles don't work anymore"<p>-<p>I think far more helpful would be a simple form helping writing a report:<p>- What is the name of the program where the problem occurs (you can find that here [screenshot showing a title bar])<p>- Describe step by step what you did when the error
occurred. Once done, please do these exact steps again to see if the problem still occurs.<p>- What did you expect to happen?<p>- What did actually happen?<p>- Did it work before?<p>- If it did, when did it work the last time? Did you change anything since than?<p>- Any further guesses on what might be relevant to the problem or what might cause it?<p>- When we solve the problem, what do I get? (multiple choice: nothing - still owed me one, a beer, a hug, other [ ])
Neat. Personally I would say "turn it off and on again" while this says the reverse. If it's targeted at a non-technical user, it needs to be foolproof. I have helped users before that would see this and literally turn their computer on and off, and wonder why the computer isn't working while off as instructed.
I can't believe that some people here think that it is better to move your relatives, who are scared/prone to malware but don't think to restart their computer first, to Linux. What a joke really. Linux is good and all, but come on people, among iOS, MacOS, Windows, Chrome and Linux, it's the least usable and least user friendly.
I'm a software engineer, and I have no idea what "is your device up to date?" means.<p>Does that mean do I have the latest iPhone, or do I have the latest device drivers (I <i>think</i> I have heard that from Windows users).<p>Not too sure there.
The last step should be replaced by some sort of autogenerated <a href="https://lmgtfy.com" rel="nofollow">https://lmgtfy.com</a> link. :)
When you type in a problem, don't open google in a different window.<p>I'm technical, and I didn't notice the new window (tab actually) till much later - I just thought the site was broken and ignored what I typed.<p>Someone non-technical is for sure not going to notice it.
I think you may as well say "Sorry, I'm not going to help you. Search Google. Bye."<p>It's annoying being asked to help with support, but if it's someone I care about I would never send them this.<p>Maybe I'm missing the joke?
One thing I'd particularly like when dealing with my parents' issues is an _easy_ way to set up remote screenshare and access. It's one thing when the problem is that their computer isn't booting (in which this site would definitely help ;)), but another if the problem is that they can't find a file they downloaded or something like that.<p>I'd pay for a tool like this that was easy to set up and use that didn't have to involve my parents installing TeamViewer, coordinating a channel, and so on.<p>Edit: Thanks for the advice all, will install one of these suggestions when I head home for the holidays.
Tech support for my family is usually "WiFi is not working", "WiFi is working only on his device and not mine", "WiFi is turning on and of randomly and constantly". I hate WiFi :) . It is almost impossible to debug and usually ends in rebooting all involved devices, sometimes it helps.
Anybody else find this too cute and patronizing? Its the guy saying "You're an idiot and I'm too smart and busy to be bothered by family. Your problems don't matter."
You should add an option to add questions. If you crowdsource it, you could end up with a giant support-question tree!<p>Then it could be fun AND useful :)<p>See [1] for a similar idea, but applied to guessing animals.<p>See [2] for a more serious approach.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.animalgame.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.animalgame.com/</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/095219769290052L" rel="nofollow">http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/09521976929...</a>
This reminds me of <a href="https://xkcd.com/627/" rel="nofollow">https://xkcd.com/627/</a>. I think both both these 'tools' could be expanded a bit to be more useful (though maybe less humorous). Though one issue with less tech-knowledgable people is that they may have trouble following some instructions from Google and the like.
>Have you tried turning it on and off again?<p>It seems that the tool is inspired by the 'IT crowd'.
IRL, unfortunately people may skip the first steps thinking that they are taken as idiots.
You fixed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle</a>
The easiest way to fix my family and friends' tech support time was buying them a Mac. Even better, moving the trickier ones to Chromebooks. Nobody calls anymore.
nice work.<p>would be cool (albeit maybe difficult), to summarize the best result instead of taking them to Google directly. i suspect anyone using this page who gets to the Google results page will have no idea where to stat when they get there.<p>a less interesting solution would maybe be to provide a video that explains how to Google solutions for technical issues & error messages.
can I suggest a question to ask what software they are using. Then append it to your google search. So, it would look like "Excel copy and paste"
I put "[expletive] everywhere" as a joke for describing the problem with the phone, and then it google searched that, resulting in a hard command + W.<p>lame.