Linux for Grandma, Part 2 (PC World)

Posted Apr 16, 2004 17:58 UTC (Fri) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435)
Parent article: Linux for Grandma, Part 2 (PC World)

I know it seems strange in this age where everyone just blindly believes
that "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 (guest, #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 (guest, #4700) [Link] (1 responses)

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.