I agree with that. But it's also true that if you have radically different values or cultural background from me, it makes understanding, and therefore effective love, more difficult. It's more effective to serve the people near you before you try to help the people far away. But point taken for sure.
Discussion
Yeah. Jesus never said it was easy to love everyone but that's what we're supposed to do, including those who are the hardest to love, like "evil" people. We can love them for showing us an example of how to be that we can consider emulating and then ultimately reject.
I agree that tailoring to the masses is like herding cats. I think that with enough normie testing, perhaps at least the 80/20 target can get hit where 80% of people can use your creation without struggle during setup or normal use and 20% of people will. At the very least, I think it helps to get over the 50% mark. From a viral standpoint, you want more than half of your attempts to onboard to be successful. Each successful onboard is a new spoke in the hub and spoke model of viral propagation.
I think developers haven't done a lot of usability testing partly because they're not satisfied with their software themselves yet. It doesn't make a lot of sense to get input when there are self-evident issues there. I am getting close to happy with flotilla though, so this is item #3 on my list (after building two things that are 100% required by users first).
That's probably a fair assessment of why some devs don't normie test their stuff.
I think perhaps there are deeper reasons at play as well.
The following is a generic dev stereotype narrative for the purpose of illustration of my point:
-Smart introverted kid gets bullied in school and becomes more introverted.
-Not only does this create psychological trauma and baggage that carries forward throughout life into interactions with normies (who may be viewed as substitutes for the kid's tormentors growing up), this often immediately turns into a habit of spending more time with computers than with people simply to avoid dealing with people.
I think a lot of devs are antisocial when it comes to normies, and I think that's often a trauma response to the stereotypical dev childhood I articulated above.
I guarantee this is the case for some devs. Some will admit it. Others would never.
I'm glad to hear that "normie testing" is on your list. I imagine being a dev is a lot like being any other kind of engineer...there's not a lot of thanks or praise that goes along with it. That said, thank you for being the type of dev that normie tests your stuff and tries sincerely to build bridges that the masses can traverse to join the pioneers.That's probably a fair assessment of why some devs don't normie test their stuff.
I think perhaps there are deeper reasons at play as well.
The following is a generic dev stereotype narrative for the purpose of illustration of my point:
-Smart introverted kid gets bullied in school and becomes more introverted.
-Not only does this create psychological trauma and baggage that carries forward throughout life into interactions with normies (who may be viewed as substitutes for the kid's tormentors growing up), this often immediately turns into a habit of spending more time with computers than with people simply to avoid dealing with people.
I think a lot of devs are antisocial when it comes to normies, and I think that's often a trauma response to the stereotypical dev childhood I articulated above.
I guarantee this is the case for some devs. Some will admit it. Others would never.
I'm glad to hear that "normie testing" is on your list. I imagine being a dev is a lot like being any other kind of engineer...there's not a lot of thanks or praise that goes along with it. That said, thank you for being the type of dev that normie tests your stuff and tries sincerely to build bridges that the masses can traverse to join the pioneers.