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What About (Microsoft) Bob? (2018)

• bediger4000 7y ago
  "Microsoft Bob was an attempt to make Windows easier for beginners to use" "Microsoft Bob was an attempt at making it easy for a total novice to use a computer..." That might have been a decent idea in 1995. In 2020, 25 years later, where at least minor skill in Windows use is a de facto requirement of employment in most jobs, I kind of think that hand-holding and mapping-from-reality-to-computer metaphors are a much worse ideas. Unless the underlying OS changes to fit the utterly simplistic metaphor, there's going to be weird problems - like when Windows consistently leaves off "exe" file extensions getting people used to just double clicking an icon to open it, and phishers send an executable named "hotgirl.jpg.exe". Unfortunately, this article doesn't seem to describe a radical simplification of Windows into a consumer appliance. It just pushes the (somewhat unconvincing) idea that everyone needs a 3-D interface with physical metaphors to effectively use the computer they've already got.