[WEB4LIB] RE: of mouse balls and such

[Tara Calishain]

At 12:39 PM 1/3/2000 -0800, Moderow, Kevin wrote:
>Long ago the command prompt was considered unforgiving.  Today the mouse is
>unintuitive.    One must ask: Just how much dumbing down is required?  I
>fear the day when being required to think is an assault on the individual's
>self worth.

My goodness, I don't consider it a case of "dumbing things down." It's just
that it's bad enough to criticize someone for not following instructions. 
Criticizing
them for following them perfectly strikes me as egregious.

As for being "required to think": She did think. She followed the 
instructions to the
letter. And IT DIDN'T WORK. Meanwhile, her daughter was EMBARRASSED
that the computer's interface was so badly designed that HER MOTHER could
not accomplish an interaction with the computer by FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS.

That's just wrong. We are being cowed by bad design. We are being chided 
for not
being able to anticipate bad instructions and bad interface -- and that's 
just wrong!

A mouse interface is not intuitive! It's good, and it makes using the computer
much easier than a plain old DOS prompt. But it's not intuitive! Fifty 
years from now
when practically every kid born grows up around computers and watches 
touchscreens
being used and mouses moving around, THEN you can skip teaching it, just 
like you
can skip teaching how to use a push-button phone and how to operate an ATM. But
until it's ubiquitous, you must ascertain a user's level of knowledge and 
accommodate
it.

WE operate computers. Computers DO NOT OPERATE US, by God!  THEY must
be designed for OUR comfort/knowledge/experience. Not vice-versa.

Tara








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