Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] I want my users advice

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

fre 2002-02-01 klockan 14.35 skrev Lauchlin Wilkinson:
> I sorry but I can't disagree more...if someone can't figure out the 
> interface to gnome meeting they shouldn't own a computer...

So computers should be only for the elite few h4xX0rS that spend all
their time tweaking them and have managed to get past all their
interface shortcomings? If that's your opinion, then your attitude is
arrogant to say the least.

Or, if you actually believe that lack of ability to automatically know
everything about computers and computer interfaces is a sign of lack of
intelligence, you are extraordinary naïve. Knowledge about computers has
nothing to do with intelligence. Just look around at your local
university, there are particle physics majors and professors that have
trouble with computers. That doesn't mean that they are less intelligent
than you, in the same way that the fact that you don't know all about
particle physics automatically makes you less intelligent than them.
Noone is an expert in every field.

Also, what your fail to understand is that this isn't just "about
failing in figuring out the interface". This is about making the process
easier.


> it is one of 
> the easiest to use apps I have seen in a long time.  I had it installed 
> and was uing it in less than 3 minutes from the time I downloaded it. 
> How can you say that even the current interface is hard to grasp?  There 
> is hardly more buttons than most people have fingers.  Maybe we should 
> cut peoples fingers off coz they might not be able to figure out how to 
> use all 10.  In my experience when you stat hiding to many buttons away 
> in sistant dark dialogs you end up with a microsoft product. :p

If you have nothing useful to add other than stupid and insulting
analogies to everyone not as l33t as you think you are, I have no
intention of continuing this thread. We could just as easily be
discussing cutting fingers off every person failing to grasp the
fundamentals of usability, and that discussion would be exactly as
meningful.

There is always room for improvement, and just because you have learned
the hard way doesn't mean that the process can't be made simpler.
If you have learned to drive a car, you will automatically think that
"it's easy". That's a natural thing to do. Once we humans have learned a
task so well that we no longer have to think about it too much when we
perform it, we automatically think it's easy. As you point out, the task
of driving a car most certainly is not an easy one. It requires months
of training. But just because you yourself have learned to master it and
don't have to carefully think about every action and movement you do
inside a car when driving, doesn't mean that it is a for humans complex
task. It's just that you have learnt it by repeating the actions by
months and months of training. That doesn't mean that the task is
trivial, or that the process of learning it can be improved.
If you fail to realize this important aspect of learning complex tasks,
that what to you appears easy or trivial in reality can be a difficult
task, that still needs to be improved in whatever way it can be
improved, and if you cannot set aside your own "expertize" in performing
the task (which is needed when analysing the learning process of others
and where teh shortcomings are), then I doubt you can offer any useful
advice on computer interfaces.


Christian