Re: Weird doc-based behaviour?
Re: Weird doc-based behaviour?
- Subject: Re: Weird doc-based behaviour?
- From: Bob Savage <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 20:27:16 -0700
>
Bill, it's not that "the HI people are wrong on this one" so much as---with
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so many issues where a given HCI doesn't fit well with certain users---the HI
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people are addressing a different audience (a different set of users).
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In this case, the users this issue is intended to address are neophyte
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users---the ones that often complained that nothing happened when they went to
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switch applications (of course, they neglected to notice the changes in the
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menu
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bar). However, addressing the neophyte users in this way (even though I
>
believe
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it to be the best way for such users) does cause problems for the more
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experienced users---especially the, so called, power users.
>
This is probably another case where the user audiences are sufficiently
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different that one solution will /not/ fit all. Hence the need for a UI
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preference (something that is often considered a big no-no by the HI
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"intelligencia").
I used to work in the desktop publishing area at a Kinko's, and before that
I did a couple years in the faculty computer lab at my university. From that
perceptive "dumbing down" the interface for the benefit of neophytes is
actually quite a boon to "power users" who are stuck answering the same
question over and over until they want to scream. I would've been much more
productive if this feature had been implemented at the time. You cannot know
how happy I am that this was implemented.
BTW, as I said before, there is an alternative for "power users" (writing
from California I am very aware that all computer users are "power" users --
Yay UPSs!) which is to cmd-tab to the program instead.
Bob