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I hang around in IT troubleshooting forums every now and then and indeed, the new habit of posting screenshots as much as possible instead of text is extremely annoying. In the meantime, I go as far as to tell people to post the error message (or whatever message they get) in text.
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Most Microsoft error messages cannot be copied and pasted. I've been waiting many years for that.
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1. I just copypasted an error message from the shell, worked just fine
2. Even if there's no copypasting, copying the text manually (as in "typing it out") isn't too much to ask from any computer user
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It could be worse. I get screen 'captures' that have been taken with their phone.
Software Zen: delete this;
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 I wasn't suggesting this was the worse thing imaginable. They could've involved a printer, a scanner, and a PowerPoint file. And perhaps a fax in there somewhere.
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I routinely receive screen captures encapsulated inside Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents, with Excel being the most popular. I've never received one in an Access or Publisher format, and only one as a OneNote file (how apropos).
I empathize with the OP, however. We have a similar scheme with dongles that are field programmable. The user gives us a serial number and we send them an activation code that is a list of 8-15 four-digit numbers. Even though we handle copy/paste nicely, we still get phone screen captures that are blurred and barely readable.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Oh, user interactions.
We gave 800 support for our cheap DOS product, and our customers got used to it. It was starting to bankrupt us. They'd call for EVERYTHING (like, hey I formatted my C: drive, your software wont run).
Worse, we actually logged EVERY support call, and wrote a help system that covered 99% of our daily calls, but NOBODY would press F1 and look up their problem.
I was a lead developer, and I took to the Help Desk as a support person for 2-3 days to get to the bottom of this. Great customers. Just lazy.
Our new process, whenever ANY client called...
- Did you press F1 and check the help?
- Lets do that now! (No, you have to... No, I can't just tell you the answer. Please Press F1)
- If you read the 15 things on you screen, which one is the best match? (Try it!), (Yes, you should feel stupid, but that's okay. Have a great day).
In 3 weeks our calls plummeted. Every customer knew that if they called us, we would force them to use F1. This was for a couple of reasons. First, most people are afraid to try new things. These were 40yr olds, not 16 year olds. Second, the simplest route is always tried first. 800#s have ZERO cost to them. Third, we NEVER made it painful. (I used this lesson with my teenage daughter, when she asks me to GOOGLE something for her, while she is doing homework on her computer!)
SUGGESTIONS:
1) Realize that they may be using another computer, and can't get copy text off of it?
2) Start emailing them back the instructions, spelled out, and wait for a proper response
3) Invest/Write a quick and dirty OCR program that works on the screenshots.
I like #3 because it would make a great little article...
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Kirk 10389821 wrote: (Yes, you should feel stupid, but that's okay. Have a great day).
I try to avoid making users feel stupid. Even when they do something that's clearly wrong, I always respond in such a way that I give them the benefit of doubt and steer them towards an alternate path. Support is far from my primary job focus and I only do it to help out, say, when coworkers are on vacation, and I perhaps haven't done it long enough to give users what others might consider to be terse answers. I'm already a cynic, g0d help me if I start making it obvious to customers.
Kirk 10389821 wrote: 1) Realize that they may be using another computer, and can't get copy text off of it?
If you can't get text, then when are the odds you can get a screenshot off of that same machine? Of course I'm ruling out (as others have suggested) taking a picture with a phone - but that hasn't happened yet. So they do directly interact with those systems, typically by remoting. Admittedly, there are cases where, with enough remoting layers (A remoting into B remoting into C), you might lose access to the clipboard, but those are few and far in-between.
Kirk 10389821 wrote: 2) Start emailing them back the instructions, spelled out, and wait for a proper response
It's not so much of a pain that I'll refuse to work with what they send us. I try to be as accommodating as possible. I only started this thread to point out that people sometimes make things more complicated for themselves than they need to be.
Kirk 10389821 wrote: 3) Invest/Write a quick and dirty OCR program that works on the screenshots.
My personal experience with OCR tells me that it works best in the context of paragraphs of text, where ending up with a few bad characters is absolutely fine, but in cases where every single character can be anything, we'll have to double-check every single character anyway. Not much of a time-saver.
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1) There are quite a few solutions that allow me to see someones screen, and NOT give me clipboard access... Meaning, they could could be hitting a limited help desk feature. Or they could have disable the clipboard sharing for security reasons. That was the implication. How are you going to find out if you don't ask?
And we never really said "Yes you should feel stupid", we said things like "Everyone Does it, that's why we walk you through it, have a great day!".. But that is what we were thinking!!!
OCR was pretty good 19 years ago. With todays quality screen shots. I would not be surprised if you couldn't get a HEXADECIMAL (assuming) response with pretty HIGH Accuracy. I would certainly try it. Also, screen resolutions these days are wonderful vs. the old scanning DPIs that created the problems!
Finally, in your response, after entering it. You should send the reminder instructions, and ASK if these did not work for you, please contact us so we can make our software better...
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if the machine has no internet and cant send email whats the point of the copy button since they can not paste it into the mail?
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See responses above. If you're remoting into a locked down system, then the clipboard function still at least has a chance of working across the remoting layer. I'm not suggesting it's the solution to everything, but having the button there is still more useful than not providing it and asking every customer to take a screenshot.
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Well it could be that the machine in question is being accessed through some sort of screen sharing app that doesn't support a shared clipboard. I know when I have to get involved in a support call, I often will be using TeamViewer on my workstation to view an RDP session on the support technicians Workstation connected to a VM in the cloud connected through a VPN to an RDP session on a workstation in the customer's environment that is in turn connected to the VMWare hosted server. In those cases copy and paste between my workstation and the customer's server often involves many many steps involving 3 different people at 3 different locations, whereas obtaining a screen grab is quick and dirty.
On the other hand, I still can't fathom why I'm getting screen shots of a terminal window from my QA people showing a one line error message when they could more easily copy and paste the text.
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As I've said elsewhere, I always give users the benefit of doubt. That said, I know for a fact (based on actual logs generated from the machine running our software) that in a lot of cases, the machine is being accessed directly and there's no remoting involved at all.
All I was saying is that despite this, some people still won't use the button.
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Instead of a button that copies the text to the clipboard, why not put it straight into a file (open the save as dialog if you want them to chose the file name/location) and ask them to copy that file to a computer with Internet and email it to you.
In any case, if the computer does not have Internet access, it is what they have to do: create a file and copy it to another computer (USB stick?), so why not do the first part for them.
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Can I suggest adding OCR capability to your license generation system?
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Probably more trouble than it's worth, I'm afraid. I can transcribe these strings fast enough, it's just that I hate having to do it.
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My question is: If the user doesn't have internet access, how are they going to send you an email? If no one else is going to say it, I will.
This is a bad UI (User Interface) and UED (User Experience Design).
Also, if the user can email you the information, they more than likely can activate their license through the internet. If they can't activate their license through the internet, and are forced to email it, then it usually means they have to find a location with internet so they can do what needs to be done.
This poses another question, how will they correctly carry the license key information to a new location? Some may save it in a text file. Some may write it down.
Do you see where I am going with this?
However, this is just my personal opinion.
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Just because the machine they're installing our software on doesn't have access to the internet, doesn't mean every machine they have access is also blocked.
We've been using this third-party licensing software for a decade and a half, and despite its flaws, it hasn't caused us to lose any sale. As much as we'd like not to deal with any license, period, it's a necessary evil.
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Illustrated: [^].
«... thank the gods that they have made you superior to those events which they have not placed within your own control, rendered you accountable for that only which is within you own control For what, then, have they made you responsible? For that which is alone in your own power—a right use of things as they appear.» Discourses of Epictetus Book I:12
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bear, bare ... oh I see what you just did.
I'd rather be phishing!
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okay ... but, did the story give you paws ?
«... thank the gods that they have made you superior to those events which they have not placed within your own control, rendered you accountable for that only which is within you own control For what, then, have they made you responsible? For that which is alone in your own power—a right use of things as they appear.» Discourses of Epictetus Book I:12
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I'm glad to see that the bear is receiving treatment for it's injuries. As for the selfie fan? Evolution in Action...
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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OriginalGriff wrote: I'm glad to see that the bear is receiving treatment for it's injuries.
Agreed. If that happened here, there would be idiots wanting to put down the bear. 
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That is the policy around here.
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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