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From: Doug_Thompson@221.162.fido.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: The future of simple BBS boards...
Message-ID: <15695@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Date: Sun, 29-Nov-87 14:20:19 EST
Article-I.D.: watmath.15695
Posted: Sun Nov 29 14:20:19 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Dec-87 05:12:18 EST
Sender: ugate@watmath.waterloo.edu
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 > Here's where I think the BBS market is going to go: User friendliness.
 >
 > Think about it. It really is a shame that current BBS's, in order to
 > be powerful, must be cryptic. Your average new user is as mystified by
 > your typical BBS, as he'd be if put at the "login:" prompt of a Unix
 > system.

Well that's interesting. But then show me any user interface that does not
leave "the average new user as mystified . . . as he'd be if put at the
login prompt of a Unix system".

My bbs says "What is your first name?"

How much friendlier can you get?

After he gives his name and password, he is presented with a menu for which
a "?" will yield help screens for each option. I really don't think point
and shoot cursor pointing makes things any friendlier. If it is considerd
unfriendly to have to type M for messages, or F for files, I wonder if that
person should be using a keyboard for anything?
Indeed since most callers are still using 1200 BAUD modems, moving the
cursor around the screen would be painfully slow and decidedly unfriendly,
not to mention increasing system overhead. Both are *big* drawbacks.
I suspect the problem is more that new BBS users do not know what a BBS is,
because they really are a new phenomenon for most people. If you did not
know what a tv or a newspaper was, do you think either would seem user-
friendly?

Once people know what they are dealing with, they know that there are
message areas and file areas, and maybe games and other things, and if they
don't know that I don't know what you can do except tell new users, in a
preliminary screen, what a BBS is. This would be un-friendly to most of
those who call me first time since most do know what a BBS is, and if they
didn't would not be calling.

We learn about newspapers and tv by growing up with them, and being exposed
in
school. Before too long people will be learning about BBSs in that way also.
Indeed some kids are already growing up with the BBS as part of their every-
day environment. So the problem, that of introducing the adult user to a
totally new technology, is really more one of "public education" than user
interface. This is not to say that there is not lots of room to improve the
interface -- but rather that "hard to use" is not really a valid criticism
in most cases. A more apt description would be "takes time to learn". I
think there is no effective sort of interface that doesn't take some time to
learn, not just in practice, but in theory. Existing interfaces divide
messages up into "Areas", or topics, like Usenet newsgroups. They permit
listing of the messages with to, from, and subject information. Messages
with the same subject line are linked so by pressing a single key you can
follow a subject train through the message base. One can I)nquire for
subject, to or from lines and get a display of mathcing messages, all with
menu selections. The user can select a full menu (slow) or no menu (fast),
but always has all the choices available by single letter commands. With a
slow modem, everything you display takes time, and the more you display, the
more unfriendly the system is to the thrid-time caller who's got the hang of
it.

 > Another thing that I think is necessary: USENET-style bulletin
 > networking. The limit on a popular BBS is the number of people who can
 > squeeze through on a single telephone line. There's a couple of ways
 > to remove this bottleneck:

Whew . . . what BBS systems have you been calling? The bulk of the message
traffic on most FidoNet BBS machines arrives in net-mail, much like in Unix.
And with gateway software such as is being used to bring this message to you,
 full integration with Usenet news can is also being handled by many.
 >
 > a) Buy a multi-user/multi-processing computer, and add telephone
 > lines. Too expensive for most people, though... for a three-line BBS,
 > we're talking about $300 for installation fees, and $45/month for the
 > phone line, not to mention the IBM AT or other similiarly powerful
 > computer with large hard drive that'd be necessary.
 >

Well, costs vary per region, but any 640K IBM clone can multi-task with a $
50 software package. The phone lines here cost $14/mo +$40 installation. So
the costs of adding a line is not really very significant, nor is the cost
of multi-tasking.

What *is* being done is getting users to go to "end-point" software instead
of terminal emulators to call the BBS. The end-point mailer calls in (any
time, day or night, it can be automated) and fetches his mail, newsgroups or
message areas he wants, and sends in outbound mail. Instead of reading and
writing messages on-line, he does that on his own box. This reduces connect
time from an hour to five minutes for a heavy user. You can see that to
accomplish the same improvement in efficiency by adding phone lines, you'd
have to add 12 phone lines and get well beyond the capacity of your typical
micro.

 > b) A distributed phone-type network a' la' a mini-USENET, where
 > several BBS's can share bulletins. This basically is like having a
 > multi-user BBS, with the advantage that the costs are shared among a
 > number of people, without the hassles of charging a fee (which will
 > repel many people -- when there's hundreds or thousands of BBS's
 > available, sending a couple of bucks to each one so that you can
 > decide which ones you want to use, is out of the question).

Of course the cost of exchanging data over an area greater than the local
calling area imply increased, not reduced costs. The pressure on BBS
operators to find funding sources in addition to their own personal resources
is likely to increase.

We've been doing this for four years, and there are more than 2,000 nodes in
North America, South America, Europe, Australia and Asia. The total user
base is hard to estimate, but probably exceeds 100,000.
You might subscribe to comp.org.fidonet to learn more about BBSing.

I agree there is a problem informing the public about the available BBS
resources. I don't think user-friendliness is the issue though. I think it
has more to do with a general unwillingness to spend the few hours needed to
get familiar with a particular BBS, or read the information that is
prominently displayed. I suppose TV is genuinely user-friendly, in that you
turn it on and sit down and that's it. You are the object, it is the subject
acting on you, and nothing is demanded of you. People are accustomed to
media which act on them with negligible effort. The BBS is inherently a
different kind of medium though, in being interactive. The process of
interaction with any machine, or any person, is something that has to be
learned. For instance, an automobile clutch is not very user-friendly, and
is also an "interactive" technology. Yet who among us has not been able to
master it?

If it is too much trouble for a user to press M to get the message area, and
N to see the next message and + to see the next message in a reply chain or -
 to see the previous message in a reply chain, that user is probably better
off sticking to TV. ---------------------------------------------------------
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