[WEB4LIB] RE: of mouse balls and such

[Jennie McKee]

--- You 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.
--- end of quote ---

I don't think what we are talking about is dumbing down.  Most people approach something new using the mental models they have already acquired.  The command prompt was the first instance most people had to deal with where just the slightest error (including accidently brushing the adjacent key) incurred such final negative results (and usually with lousy error messages as to what happened or didn't).  The mouse as an affordance is unusual to most unless they've done something like play with remote cars or planes or were already versed with computer games and it requires a small motor motion and hand-eye coordination that most people did not encounter until they needed to use a mouse.  Computers are tools and using tools is an acquired skill for the vast majority - acquired by example, teaching or understandable instructions.  I firmly believe it's my job to provide those three items. If I can provide a way of access that hooks into the user's existing mental models I'll use it but we still have a long ways to go in perfecting computer-human interaction.

But hey, it's a great time to be working in our profession.  We have all these interesting problems to deal with.

Jennie

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Jennie McKee
Systems Librarian
Reed College Library
Portland, OR 97202
email: jennie at reed.edu
phone: 503.777.7752
fax: 503.777.7786
pager: 1.888.862.4879
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