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From: stpeters@dawn.steinmetz (Dick St.Peters)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Request for human interface design anecdotes
Message-ID: <7994@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Nov-87 13:56:14 EST
Article-I.D.: steinmet.7994
Posted: Fri Nov 27 13:56:14 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Nov-87 23:28:29 EST
References: <1721@spar.SPAR.SLB.COM> <1621@megatest.UUCP>
Sender: root@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP
Reply-To: dawn!stpeters@steinmetz.UUCP (Dick St.Peters)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 40

In article <530@mtxinu.UUCP> ed@mtxinu.UUCP (Ed Gould) writes:
>People who design interfaces for novices should remember that a very
>large fraction of users are complete novices for only a short time.

Sigh ... if only that were really true.

>The only users who do not tend to progress
>are those who use a system only very infrequently and essentially re-
>learn each time.

... and those who use it a lot but "don't want to learn any more about
the system than they *have* to"  ("I'm judged by how much work I get
done, not by how much I know about the computer.")

... and those who are petrified by keyboards (or mice, or ...)

... and those who somehow just don't learn  (I know one very bright
engineer, eminent in his field, who for years has spent the major part
of every day at a terminal writing and running programs, yet who still
does not comprehend the concept of a "process" and how it differs from
a "program".)

... and those who are stuck in their ways  (We had a user on our old
mainframe who insisted on programming stacks of Hollerith cards for
years after interactive time-sharing offered the alternatives of
either interactive computation or batch jobs submitted as files of
"card images".)

The world will likely always be full of novices who remain novices,
and they will always require hand-holding.

As Gould argues, there should be an evolutionary path from novice
interface to expert interface.  However, the overall interface should
*encourage* the novice to take that path, not just passively allow the
possibility.
--
Dick St.Peters                        
GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY
stpeters@ge-crd.arpa              
uunet!steinmetz!stpeters