If you're the designated "IT person" for your parents, grandparents, or co-workers, I built something to make your life easier. And if you're the one usually asking for the help, this is for you, too.

Tech Support Helper is a basic web app that walks the user through everyday technical issues step-by-step. There's no magic to it; it's just a standalone page you can bookmark or text to someone who is currently losing their mind over a frozen iPad or a stubborn printer.

Tech Support Helper

There is also a standalone version of the app that you can send to anyone who is in need of technical support.

Inspiration

I lifted the concept straight from the classic xkcd comic 627 ("Tech Support Cheat Sheet").

The comic gives away the industry's biggest secret: tech-savvy people don’t actually know how to fix every specific computer problem off the top of our heads. We just have a system for figuring it out. We look for menus that make sense, read the actual error messages, and Google the things we don't understand. It's just trial and error.

xkcd mapped that trial-and-error process into a flowchart. I just took that flowchart and coded it into an app you can actually click through.

Send it to your family, and maybe you'll get fewer frantic tech support calls this weekend.