Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!nysernic!itsgw!steinmetz!dawn!stpeters
From: stpeters@dawn.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Request for human interface design anecdotes
Message-ID: <8106@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 4-Dec-87 18:03:51 EST
Article-I.D.: steinmet.8106
Posted: Fri Dec  4 18:03:51 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 8-Dec-87 06:29:52 EST
References: <10579@brl-adm.ARPA>
Sender: root@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP
Reply-To: dawn!stpeters@steinmetz.UUCP (Dick St.Peters)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 38

In article <10579@brl-adm.ARPA> bzs@bu-cs.bu.EDU (Barry Shein) writes:
>Gak, this discussion comes up every few months doesn't it?

Yeah.  Too bad it has to keep coming up.  It should never stop.

>predictably, not one poster ever offers anything beyond the thinnest
>anecdotal evidence. No research papers or even informal, controlled
>studies, nothing. Just introspective, armchair psychology.

Papers and studies may someday make for a wonderful user interface,
but in the meantime we have to live with - and help others live with -
the interface(s) we've got.  In a few weeks, I will have been helping
people make the VMS-->UNIX transition for five years, and other
peoples' warnings, hints, suggestions, etc. have been of great help.
Even the tiresone rm * discussions occasionally bring up something of
interest.

>I do know that AT&T has made MegaSagans of US$'s with a user interface
>that requires people to type in long strings of digits to contact
>their friends and business associates.

Thank you for your research report. :-)

>I'm not even completely convinced that the goal of a computer
>interface design is to make it easy for any idiot to use the system
>with no effort.

There are people who do not adapt well to using computers but are far
from being idiots, including at least one member of my group who could
design a computer from scratch (the chips, the boards, and the bus)
but will never be a very comfortable user of one.  However, he does
have to use one routinely, and it's a part of my job to make that as
painless as possible.
--
Dick St.Peters                        
GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY
stpeters@ge-crd.arpa              
uunet!steinmetz!stpeters