5 ms·

I don't think it's reasonable to expect the average computer user to go digging through man pages to figure out how to do literally everything they use a comput

I don't think it's reasonable to expect the average computer user to go digging through man pages to figure out how to do literally everything they use a computer for. My mom relies on information and actionable instructions being presented in the context which it is used. I once discovered that she didn't know what a button did because there was a delay between pressing that button and the change it made, the delay was enough to break the cause and effect relationship in her mind. You and I have spent our entire lives training on, memorizing UX metaphors and computer patterns. We go into a problem knowing generally how we want to solve it, so we know what to look for when reading a man page. My mom methodically reads every option in the context menu when she right clicks on a file in an email before choosing save, because nothing is obvious and if she didn't have that she'd be writing down explicit, context sensitive, step-by-step instructions for how to save an attachment (I know because before I taught her to read the menus that's literally what she did)

misnome 8y ago
This is really a really good description of the problem. People use computers in ways that seem bizarre to us. Another e.g. I have lots of scientific colleagues (I don’t think any of our teams programmers) who still don’t know when to single click vs double click, OS vs Browser. All they know and care is that double click works almost everywhere.
adventured 8y ago
This can be made even more simple as a contrast. Hand an average consumer an iPad. Then hand them a laptop with no interface except for a command line. Watch what happens. We already know exactly what happens. The average consumer absolutely detests the CLI. The iPad GUI is so trivially easy to immediately learn to use that children in third world villages with zero formal education and zero knowledge of modern technology can instantly pick it up and begin using it without training.
- chuckdries 8y ago
  and, importantly, they can still pick up the metaphors even if they don't understand english (or the language of preference) very well. MAN pages often require really really good language skills in the given language to understand.
- dingaling 8y ago
  > The iPad GUI is so trivially easy to immediately learn to use It really isn't. I've only handled an iOS device a couple of times and I still have no idea how to switch back to my previous app.

misnome 8y ago

This is really a really good description of the problem. People use computers in ways that seem bizarre to us. Another e.g. I have lots of scientific colleagues (I don’t think any of our teams programmers) who still don’t know when to single click vs double click, OS vs Browser. All they know and care is that double click works almost everywhere.

adventured 8y ago

This can be made even more simple as a contrast. Hand an average consumer an iPad. Then hand them a laptop with no interface except for a command line. Watch what happens. We already know exactly what happens. The average consumer absolutely detests the CLI. The iPad GUI is so trivially easy to immediately learn to use that children in third world villages with zero formal education and zero knowledge of modern technology can instantly pick it up and begin using it without training.

chuckdries 8y ago
and, importantly, they can still pick up the metaphors even if they don't understand english (or the language of preference) very well. MAN pages often require really really good language skills in the given language to understand.
dingaling 8y ago
> The iPad GUI is so trivially easy to immediately learn to use It really isn't. I've only handled an iOS device a couple of times and I still have no idea how to switch back to my previous app.