Why every technical glitch tells a human story.

A technical glitch has been described by #Lenovo as a temporary malfunction or irregularity in a computer system, software, or digital communication. A technical glitch although can lead to very serious technical failures is in itself usually not a very serious technical failure. Technical glitches can be resolved quickly and it’s usually not a major fault in a system.Technical glitches which are often unpredictable, can include but is not limited to: hardware faults, code bugs, freezing website, unexpected user actions and lots of other minor faults in a system. Technical glitches can eat deep into production time as it usually requires troubleshooting in order to understand the cause of the glitch.

Understanding the truth that technology is built by people and shaped by human decisions while also impacted by human limitations is ‘key’ when trying to troubleshoot technical glitches. In software teams for example, developers and testers make decisions daily on the code structure, what to prioritise, how to design the system, how to test and many other decisions. Deciding to delay the testing of a product till later in the development cycle by a software team - based on their decided workflow might lead to unintended consequences as well as reduced product quality. Under tight deadlines, the decision to release such products with low product quality will later cause glitches or even a complete system malfunction. These glitches or system malfunction, although technical - can be traced back to a more personal human story. Every of these glitch tells a story about the environment in which the technology was developed. The story can be interpreted as a story of anxiety (developers under a tight deadline to release a poorly tested product), urgency as well as compromise.

Technology is usually not an isolated or impersonal entity. It often times carries the idea, identity and the emotions of the engineer (designer, developer etc) with it. For example, behind a glitch, there is sometimes the question of if developers/designers truly understand how users would interact with the product. A ‘very busy’, confusing and unintuitive user interface will cause a glitch. Users can easily get irritated, stressed and frustrated when using such a product. This glitch although technical, can stem from a lack of empathy from the developers/designers  and a lack of understanding of the user's perspective. This experience tells a personal story of empathy or the lack of it (developers).

Understanding the human story behind every glitch moves us as engineers one step faster to resolving the glitch. These stories should not be discarded or overlooked as they can provide a great insight into what caused the glitch and how it can be resolved quicker and better. For example, a tired developer can be given a day-off by management in order to relax and rejuvenate so as to be able to improve code quality. A quality assurance engineer can easily speak with the product owner to factor in from the start- an extra week for testing before product release. Developers anxiety can be doused by the product owner by setting more realistic deadlines and having a workflow that creates an internal (soft) deadline prior to a hard deadline.

In conclusion, technical glitches should be regarded as learning opportunities and  irrespective of how advanced technology becomes, it will always be shaped by the decisions of (or the lack of it) the humans who built it.