of mouse balls and such

[Kyle Banerjee]

[arguments about the intuitiveness or unintuitiveness of certain
technologies omitted]

    I think that efforts to design objects and symbols that are universally
intuitive may be a search for a holy grail. In an age where bags of ice
require instructions to "store in freezer" and you can't buy fire starters
or charcoal lighter that doesn't warn you to store the product away from
heat or flame, I'm not sure it's reasonable to think that a computer
periphereal could be "intuitive" to everyone.

    Fortunately, the adaptive learning process will help see us through this
mess. Just as many people learn through discovery that vanilla doesn't taste
as good as it smells, bees sting, and that it is a bad idea to put butter on
the bread before toasting it (despite warnings from parents), most people
figure out how to do what they need to eventually.

kyle
___________________________________________________________________
Kyle Banerjee     banerjek at ucs.orst.edu     Oregon State University
3769 Valley Library, Corvallis, OR 97331              (541)737-7262
              http://ucs.orst.edu/~banerjek/