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Linux for Grandma, Part 2 (PC World)
Matthew Newton puts
together a Linux computer for his Grandmother, as described in PC
World. "As I've said, Grandma has zero experience with PCs. Every
single concept that gets introduced to her is going to be new, so the
easier those concepts are to digest, the better; the more related to the
real world that Grandma has known for the better part of a century, the
better. I don't ever want her to hear the words "hierarchical file system."
But she can handle putting files into folders. So I want an interface that
provides the most pure, consistent, unadulterated files-and-folders
experience I can find." (Found on Footnotes)
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Linux for Grandma, Part 2 (PC World) Posted Apr 16, 2004 17:58 UTC (Fri) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link] I know it seems strange in this age where everyone just blindly believesthat "GUI == easy to use", but in MY experience, you'd be better off giving grandma a command-line interface... I can already hear the gasps of horror now... ;-) But, I think it's true... At least, I'll tell you that MY grandmother immediately understood and grasped the simple concept of a command-line interface... (It was an ancient version of DOS, in this case, not Linux, sadly... She was determined to find a use for my ancient Tandy 1000HX 8088 machine, and that's not exactly a suitable machine to try to get Linux running on... ;-)) She immediately and easily understood the simple concept of typing in commands to accomplish certain tasks... It was just a matter of learning the right commands to type... But, she really had almost zero trouble with it... Now, most of the programs she wanted to run (ancient word processors, card-making apps, label-printing apps, etc.) had (character-based TUI) menus, which she found a lot harder to grasp than the simple command-typing she picked up instantly... But, eventually, I got her to understand how to use the menus... For the most part... She does still have trouble with them sometimes... And, really, the only way she really understands how to use them well is to know the correct hot-keys to hit for the appropriate menu choice... She just doesn't really grasp the "navigate to the menu choice you want to select and hit enter" sort of approach... It seems counterintuitive to her... So, you can probably guess her reaction upon being presented with any sort of GUI... I showed her one once, and she just couldn't make heads nor tails of it... The concept of moving a mouse around to point at a picture of what you want to do, and then clicking on it was just as incomprehensible to her as if the interface were all in Chinese or something... I tried to explain it to her a bit, but I could see it just wasn't clicking, and was unlikely to ever do so... So, I let her happily continue using plain old DOS, and typing in commands, which she can easily comprehend and seems to be perfectly "user-friendly" for her... ;-)
Linux for Grandma, Part 2 (PC World) Posted Apr 17, 2004 18:23 UTC (Sat) by soundray (subscriber, #688) [Link] I agree with you. The idea of "entering a dialog" with an information-processing machine is much more naturally comprehensible than the "desktop" metaphor. Certainly, the desktops that I've had to deal with in the real world didn't tend to open any windows. Similarly, I find it conceptually easier to deal with a markup language like HTML or LaTeX than a WYSIWIG interface.
Linux for Grandma, Part 2 (PC World) Posted Apr 19, 2004 11:55 UTC (Mon) by kreutzm (subscriber, #4700) [Link] I know that old people learning to use computers (i.e. Windows courses) always spend lots of time with the participants on learning how to use the mouse. A keyboard is usually no problem, but hitting the right spot, and double clicking, and holding the mouse while navigating is not easy for these users. So maybe a completly text-driven or at least keyboard-navigable UI would be better for those users.Of course you can configure it, but I think many simply don't do it (especially since those capable of configuring it don't see the need).
Linux for Grandma, Part 2 (PC World) Posted Apr 19, 2004 23:21 UTC (Mon) by XERC (guest, #14626) [Link] What regards to the mouse part, than I agree. It was a huge effort for my healthy grandfather to get the cursor to the right place by moving the mouse. Clicking by holding the mouse at the same position was crtainly a pretty hard coordination exercise for him, but what a hell, we all learn, right?I remember how my fingers felt after some first fast-typing classes. Now I'm using the keyboard all day long without ever needing to sare at it.
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