Usability experiences

Usability experiences

If the interface is dumbed down to the supposedly average Joe & Jane, you will be alienating a large minority who want to do more with their desktop, and/or who want to do things quicker.

I don't think usability is just about making it easier for less-sophisticated users. Programs with poor interface typically make things bad for everyone, for example by making common operations require too many steps to accomplish, or destructive mistakes too easy to make.

In the past summer I had the most enlightening experience of teaching an elderly newbie to computers to get online and use e-mail. Of course I set her up to use Linux, with a friendly distribution (Mandriva 2008.0 with some extra localization and KDE) I configured for her, but all the problems she encountered really had absolutely nothing to do with the OS or window system. We nowadays assume that when you have a GUI, everyone can easily learn to use it. Nonsense. We had to tackle basic concepts like use of mouse and menues, how to start programs and make choices. She had no idea about the difference between the hardware, OS, application and the internet. When the system inevitably showed some error or warning messages, and I tried to help by phone, it was difficult as she could not really tell me if the problem was a dialog box from the web browsers, something actually on a web page, or a message from lower layers. I can now well believe that most users like her immediately fall for the fake warnings from addware- and malware-pushing web sites or emails... (one good reason for using Linux in her case!). And she was not stupid at all, having had a long career in a quite demanding profession. It is just that she had no contact with the wacky world of computers.

In this situation some of the configurability of the UI backfired. For example, in KDE you can put the task bar at any side of the screen you want by dragging, or make it hide by a click in certain place. Being uncertain with the mouse, she sometimes dragged or hid it by mistake, then wondered if she had broken the computer. Apparently using the mouse is much more difficult to learn than we who have learned it long ago remember. And it requires a degree of precision and muscle control that some older people may no longer have.

I recommend that anyone who is working on user interfaces try replicating my experience: Try to find someone who has never used computers, and teach him/her the basics of daily PC and net use. It will make you see the whole field with new eyes.