Clippy has googly eyes, so when it doesn’t understand what I want and blocks me from continuing my task, I think it’s an earnest obstructionist idiot. My computer does not have googly eyes so I don’t get angry at it because I don’t feel it is a person. Also, when it doesn’t understand what I want it’s not designed to block me from trying things,
I’m not convinced. When web sites throw up interstitial or pop-over ads that block me from doing what I’m trying to do, I think I respond to them as if an agent is deliberately interfering with my plans; even if those interfering ads do not have facial features or expressions.
But that may be because I recognize that some programmer or web designer has chosen to put those obstacles in my way; I curse the human agent responsible, not the pop-up itself. To distinguish the two cases, we’d need to find out whether people without extensive programming or systems experience do feel more irritated at modal pop-ups with facial features, than at modal pop-ups that do not have facial features.
Clippy has googly eyes, so when it doesn’t understand what I want and blocks me from continuing my task, I think it’s an earnest obstructionist idiot. My computer does not have googly eyes so I don’t get angry at it because I don’t feel it is a person. Also, when it doesn’t understand what I want it’s not designed to block me from trying things,
I’m not convinced. When web sites throw up interstitial or pop-over ads that block me from doing what I’m trying to do, I think I respond to them as if an agent is deliberately interfering with my plans; even if those interfering ads do not have facial features or expressions.
But that may be because I recognize that some programmer or web designer has chosen to put those obstacles in my way; I curse the human agent responsible, not the pop-up itself. To distinguish the two cases, we’d need to find out whether people without extensive programming or systems experience do feel more irritated at modal pop-ups with facial features, than at modal pop-ups that do not have facial features.
I think this is more of a reflection of computer literacy.
When my computer does something wrong, I assume its my fault. When my parent’s computers do something wrong, they complain at it. Pretty uselessly.
I guess Clippy just makes people who don’t normally over-anthropomorphize computers over-anthropomorphize enough to get annoyed.
Well, you often are not doing anything at all wrong when Clippy gets in your face. Its annoying because it reliably fails, until I disable it.
True. Not only does Clippy not do what you want it to, it gets in the way of your doing things until you deal with it, and shows up at bad times.