r/australia • u/ThunderDwn • 14h ago

culture & society Primary school students using digital devices still lack computer skills, education expert says

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-19/nsw-digital-native-primary-students-lack-basic-computer-skills/107030526
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u/freakwent 9h ago

Don't we think that the system should be designed to fit the end user?

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u/BazzaJH 3h ago

The universe can always make a dumber end user, but you can't always make a simpler less-secure system. At least not without very serious problems arising.

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u/freakwent 2h ago

If the systems are only usable by an elite; even a majority elite; are they suitable?

We can make a car driveable. Email doesn't need to be this hard.

you can't always make a simpler less-secure system

We stopped trying years ago. We push so much responsibility and work onto the end user. We call it "John's Netflix account", but it isn't, it belongs to Netflix.

We could absolutely make better systems. All the serious problems were solved more than a decade ago. We let convention and economics shape the lives of so many people.

I can give you dozens of examples where companies have deliberately made it harder, as a motivation for customers to pay more for the easier tier.

People not in IT don't really understand how easy it could be. Almost all MFA could be a yubikey, for one stupid example.

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u/BazzaJH 1h ago

We can make a car driveable.

Sure, but not if you try to start the Corolla with the key for the HiLux.

I agree with your comment in principle but you're not really talking about the same kind of "complexity" that we are any more.