APPLEVISION Monitor, Anything !Windows = Cryptic ?

From: Christopher Smith <csmith_at_amdocs.com>
Date: Tue May 7 10:31:22 2002

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Erlacher [mailto:edick_at_idcomm.com]

> I just consider "user-friendly" as being such that you can
> take an unitiated
> but interested party, set them down at the console, and
> expect them to be able
> to do what they want to do without first attending extensive
> training. I know

Most computer systems could claim that title, then. I don't know
of any system, for instance, where word processing requires
extensive training. (I am assuming that by "do what they want,"
you'd mean to exclude writing device drivers ;)

At a very worst, one must convince them to type the command for
the word processor, and start writing.

> Windows does that, however, and so, apparently does the Mac,
> though I find it
> confusing because it's not what I've grown to know, if not love.

Again, I think most systems do. It's probably just a question
of degree, and doubtless there's a point beyond which you'd call
a system "user friendly."

You seem to treat "user friendly" as an end in itself, or perhaps
it's the means to get more work from your employees? I see it as
a means of using the computer to do what I want, so the "user
friendly" must not get in the way of doing that. Any system where
that happens, no matter how "user friendly," seems downright
hostile to me. :)

Also remember that "user friendly" is relative.

It's a difficult matter to find a good, generic user interface. It's
fine to design machines to do one thing, or a few things, and they'll
do them very well if the people working on the design know what's
going on.

Making a generic system is more difficult. There's the matter of
scope: what should the system do? There are trade-offs in simplicity
vs. completeness. Many other problems arise too. I don't think anyone
has ever done this perfectly, and everyone who tries has some problems.
In fact, many of the problems stem from conscious design choices.

I'm sure that until this hypothetical "perfect interface" appears, we
will all have our preferences. This interface is not acceptable, for
reason Q; this other one won't work, because it's difficult to do Z...

... but this one is "user friendly," because it does what I want it
to do. What, you don't do much lambda calculus? Use it anyway, it's
"user friendly!" No, there's no word processor available, but who
cares... ;)

Anyway, you get the point, I'm sure. For a windows user to say to
somebody "windows is user-friendly, because it lets me run office
apps easily" is silly, since the next person may not care a bit for
office apps. I could tell that same person "windows is user hostile,
because it's difficult to handle dynamic libraries, and its API is a
mess."

Will that matter to the user? (The answer is yes, but they don't know
it, so they don't care.) It's all in what you're doing, and what you
can put up with to get it done.

Chris


Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL

/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
 
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Received on Tue May 07 2002 - 10:31:22 BST