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Book of the Day: The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How To Restore The Sanity | |
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| Time: 00:00 EST/05:00 GMT | News Source: ActiveWin.com | Posted By: Robert Stein | ||
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Rather than provide users with a straightforward set of options, programmers often pile on the bells and whistles and ignore or deprioritize lingering bugs. For the average user, increased functionality is a great burden, adding to the recurrent chorus that plays, "computers are hard, mysterious, unwieldy things." (An average user, Cooper asserts, who doesn't think that way or who has memorized all the esoteric commands and now lords it over others, has simply been desensitized by too many years of badly designed software.) Cooper's writing style is often overblown, with a pantheon of cutesy terminology (i.e., "dancing bearware") and insider back-patting. (When presenting software to Bill Gates, he reports that Gates replied: "How did you do that?" to which he writes, "I love stumping Bill!") More seriously, he is also unable to see beyond software development's importance--a sin he accuses programmers of throughout the book. | ||
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| #1 By 135 (208.186.90.91) at 7/24/2003 12:17:05 AM |
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Fascinating.
One of the complaints I have long had about software such as Outlook is that there are too many options. I go through and tweak and poke and prod and finally get what I think is reasonable and works, but why should I have to do that? Yes, the problem with software and why it makes it hard for endusers is the options. I understand the hidden desire to have them, but it should at least be done in a self-explanatory way. I guess it's funny... as the Linux desktop crowd claims this is their greatest strength, the ability to tweak every little thing. If you ever spent much time with X Windows, and your .XDefaults file you'd understand how bizarrely frustrating this can be. :) |
| #2 By 12071 (203.185.215.149) at 7/24/2003 1:58:17 AM |
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Yeah, the way I see it there are two main issues that contribute to this problem:
1) A great deal of developers develop software and more importantly UI's based on how THEY think it should work. Whilst this is great for everyone else that has a similar level of expertise as the developer, your average user will just be completely confused. Even the wording of the options themselves are sometimes only understood by the developer alone! 2) With the way the world is, most companies are in such a rush to get a product to market that even if the developers wanted to improve the UI or program in general, they are usually unable to do so, leaving those "to do's" for the next version/upgrade. The difficulty is in trying to present the options to the user in a "basic", "intermediate" and "advanced" form. You don't want everyone to have to struggle with difficult to understand options and you don't want everyone to get pissed off with everything being a wizard of some sort. |
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