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user friendliness: minimising learninguser friendliness: minimising learningPosted Apr 26, 2004 9:46 UTC (Mon) by copsewood (subscriber, #199)Parent article: Windows vs Linux - Which is easier to install? If we define user friendliness as a process which minimises what you need to learn in order to carry out a defined job this casts an interesting perspective on the issue of competence and the extent to which experience of technology usage leads to mastery or a levelling off of the learning curve. One technique is to accompany a simple interface with multiple levels of information which the user can dive into to the desired level. When you move your mouse over a control, a single sentence of explanation might pop up. It would be useful to have further levels of context sensitive explanation available on request (e.g. a help button beside the control). Ultimately full documentation is only ever accessible by reading the source code and having the ability to modify it - this is something where the need for depth of knowledge will always favour free software over closed.
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user friendliness: minimising learning Posted Apr 26, 2004 21:03 UTC (Mon) by nobrowser (guest, #21196) [Link] If we define user friendliness as a process which minimises what you need to learnThat's precisely the hidden assumption made by the author and most posters in this thread that I reject. What do you have your life for? Staring into a TV tube, or rolling on sandy beaches? No. Learning.
user friendliness: minimising learning Posted Apr 27, 2004 9:27 UTC (Tue) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link] I was intentionally pointing out this significant deficiency of this particular definition, or implication of "user friendliness". However, no-one in their right mind would make a job more difficult than it need be. Yes it is true that for some the glass tube in front of them is no more than a tool to get a particular job done as quickly as possible. For most intelligent people however, it is something that enough time is spent in front of, such that they really do not want their interaction with it to be designed to minimise their learning and maximise their ignorance. This requires a longer-term perspective in user-interface design. If the jobs you are going this year don't result in you acquiring the knowledge needed to avoid reduncancy next year, was the user interface really that well suited to the task in hand ?Those who wish to promote a culture of lifelong learning therefore need to take this debate - and the positive benefits of the system user spending a little more time in exploring and discovering the environs of their immediate workplace - to a much wider audience.
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