Usability

[joack at gmx.net]

On 25 Jul 01, at 3:48, John Peter Tapsell wrote:
 
> But again your users are just users - and I totally agree if that is the case.
> What I'm trying to say is that we should force the users into being more
> technical then users, and having to have some understanding of the underlying
> workings.
I'm one of them -  more or less - just trying to make the transition. 
Lets face it, whats really stupid about that sun-study is that they 
used totally uninformed people. Nobody is going to use the gnome 
(or the K-desktop) w/o getting to know their system better then 
they ever needed or were able to know their old one. The testees 
werent told the first thing (not even that the gnome isnt an OS). 
I think you'd get what you want with an easy to use UI with easy to 
access info about the underlying structure. Its alot more fun if you 
'discover' what youre using, isnt it? And if people are basically 
scared of the computer anyway youll only intimidate them the other 
way.
> Do you agree/disagree that if use the base assumption we want more technical
> users, then we can't abstract the UI too much, and we have to make the UI
> closely related to the inner workings?
But maybe make the inner workings 'visible', most non-hackers are 
more visual I think
> I agree with everyones points about abstracting etc for lusers, but we
> shouldn't aim to cater for them, instead aim for the more techinical user - the
> ones that will be interested in knowing how to fix simple problems by
> themselves, and not be afraid to use a terminal.
That could be a problem and I dont think its got to much to do with 
the colour (black). I think, though, that bug-reporting and its import 
could be made more obvious.
> Um, aren't children generally a lot better at this then adults? :)
I know a hacker who lets, if possible, his mother test everything he 
writes. She finds the most obvious bugs, which usually are those 
he never finds ;o)

greets
	Joachim