11 ms·

Most new computer users find it very hard to remember additional, non intuitive actions like right clicking & context menus I didn't realize this. In fact, if

by dhimes 15y ago

Most new computer users find it very hard to remember additional, non intuitive actions like right clicking & context menus I didn't realize this. In fact, if I were asked to guess, I would have answered that most new users would pick up pretty quickly how to use context menus, especially if the context menus had related commands like file manipulation if in Windows Explorer (is it still called that?), or formatting if in a text document, etc. Hell, rats in a cage can learn what to push in order to eat, so I would have thought that people would be able to learn this. Of course, it would help if they were told somehow and didn't have to discover it.

riffic 15y ago
agree, in fact UI like this encourages a user to develop bad usage habits, which will remain with them for an indefinite amount of time until these behaviors are (if ever) unlearned.
- sukuriant 15y ago
  What are bad usage habits? (since we're on topic: I'm an MS employee. I do not work on Windows Explorer)
  - bostonvaulter2 15y ago
    I'm guessing riffic meant using the copy and paste buttons instead of the keyboard shortcuts, but I don't agree that that is a "bad usage habit".
cwbrandsma 15y ago
Work in support sometime. It is EXTREMELY common to find users that really don't know about right-click. Or that double-click everything. These are not new users either, they have been using computers for decades. For new users I might agree that they could figure out a right click because everything is new. But for users where everything is familiar ("I've always done it this way"), it gets much harder to break those expected actions. Second part is about explorer itself. While it might seem like a common utility (even necessary), I find it very rare for a general user to know about it (my wife does not, nor my parents, siblings, their friends,...but my wife's father does). Once they see it, they have no idea what to do. Copy a file? Really, they have no idea.
- ajross 15y ago
  Do those users use the desktop shell at all though? In my experience with novice users (across platforms: Mac noobs are no better) is that they only know enough to launch apps. They never touch the desktop integration at all.
  - sukuriant 15y ago
    When my grandfather uses the computer, he reorganizes the desktop, and puts files in folders, and sometimes wants to delete things, yes. All of those actions require knowing how to [delete], [open folders], [drag and drop].
  - alextingle 15y ago
    This is only because the Finder/Explorer has been made harder and harder to use. Apple's OSX Finder is a shocking UI abomination. Their old MacOS Finder was clear and simple - my wife would spend hours arranging her work in coloured folders, each of which opened in a window whose shape and position she had chosen, and was meaningful to her. It was a powerful tool that enabled her to arrange and group her work. Now, both Apple and Microsoft compete with each other over how bad they can make their file system interface. Microsoft wanted to do away with the filesystem in Longhorn, and Apple have actually done so in iOS. Is this progress??
    - GeneralMaximus 15y ago
      Are you talking about spatial mode? That still exists in Finder. Just hit Cmd+Opt+T or select "Hide Toolbars" from the View menu. You're absolutely right. I don't have the citation on me right now, but spatial mode has been found to be easier to grasp for new users in every single test ever. The only reason it was dropped was because (1) Windows Explorer, (2) power users whined about too many open windows and (3) a lot of people got used to URLs opening in the same window thanks to web browsers, so people sought to apply the same principles to file browsers. Spatial mode used to be default on GNOME for a long time. There, too, it was dropped because of the same reasons. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_file_manager http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_file_manager and http://www.bytebot.net/geekdocs/spatial-nautilus.html http://www.bytebot.net/geekdocs/spatial-nautilus.html
tjogin 15y ago
Invisible actions are harder to discover than visible ones, not that illogical really, and one of the key ways in which the Mac is more user friendly as it depends on context menus to a lesser degree.
- dhimes 15y ago
  While I agree with all of your points, keep in mind that when 'civilians' were just getting to use computers (being forced to at work, etc.), Mac lost in favor of the IBM-compatibles (what people started calling 'pc's). There are a lot of reasons for this, to be sure, but difficulty of using the PC was not something that carried much weight in the argument (I was there for the arguments, and I was a mac man).
  - wpietri 15y ago
    True, but for reasons closely related to this discussion. Back in the day, the benefits of Macs were mostly invisible to novices when making a purchase decision. PCs looked cheaper and safer. Apple has learned a lesson here. They are now heavily optimized for ease and comfort of purchase.
51Cards 15y ago
Yes but people don't WANT to learn things like this. My mother doesn't want to remember what mouse button to click or that CTRL or ALT is a modifier on this command. I would argue that THIS is what made Apple's OS hang on all those years it was in the severe minority. There is a segment of the population that wants only one mouse button to click, not 3, not 3 plus CTRL or ALT or etc. Apple did end up having to rely heavily on their option key to extend functionality but at its root the UI was designed so that the average user could do things in a simple, straightforward way. MS sees visually exposing commands to the user as their way to do it and while I may not entirely agree, I don't think it's without merit. My kudos to them for also letting me as a "power user" collapse the "newbie visual noise" off my screen and drop what I want on a custom quick access bar. Remember: don't let your status as a power user cloud your view of how your grandmother might want to use her computer. There are FAR more 'grandmother' grade users than there are us.
- dhimes 15y ago
  Then why are the ipad and iphone taking off? It's really hard to learn to do things on those devices. It's cumbersome to turn off wifi and bluetooth to save battery. The control location makes no sense in the settings menu (to my mind, anyway). I was a HUGE Apple fan for the early Macs. I totally get what you are saying. But we LOST in the workplace. It was just too slow for the other folks in the office to use (of course, the real death blow was having only a graphics mode to the display so the typing was dreadfully slow-- and the secretaries wouldn't use them- but that's another story). But I get your point. That's why I phrased my response as I did. I have never done UI/UX testing- maybe the parent has and was sharing his insight. But if we are all just speculating, I've got to throw out a shout for the other point of view. Yes, too many (how many is too many? I don't know) and it gets to be like using VIM. But two buttons? Seems like it should be ok.
  - serge2k 15y ago
    Probably because people think it looks fun and are wiling to put in the few minutes it takes to not a be completely useless with the device.
  - 15y ago
nickknw 15y ago
> In fact, if I were asked to guess, I would have answered that most new users would pick up pretty quickly how to use context menus As someone who has done a fair amount of tutoring seniors on basic computer usage, I have a large amount of anecdotal evidence to indicate this is definitely not the case for them. Depending on the person, I would sometimes try to not show them context menus or keyboard shortcuts at all and just teach them how to use the File, Edit, etc. menus. There are people who just want to learn the correct order of incantations so that they can check their mail and do things with their photos. And that's okay! Trying to show them that that there is more than one way to do a given action often just leads to confusion as they meld them together (right click on Edit..) I have seen a fair amount of people with a similar approach as well, but my largest body of personal experience comes from the tutoring, which is why I mentioned it.
- xtracto 15y ago
  >There are people who just want to learn the correct order of incantations so that they can check their mail and do things with their photos I have been seeing the same thing with research colleagues. What a lot of us in IT or related fields do not "get" from normal users is that the way they "see" the icons and pictures in the computer is completely different from what we do. We have a "mental model" of what Word or Excel or Firefox is doing. Some of us have a more accurate and detailed model than others. But "normal" users only know what they see and what will happen after they do something (either because they have done it before or because we told them, and they trust us). For them, there is no more meaning to "click on the File menu" than if a Scuba diver told you to "check your SPG every 10 minutes".
Qz 15y ago
The main problem with right clicking is that right clicking does a myriad different things depending on what is being clicked on, whereas left clicking almost always does the same thing.
larrywright 15y ago
It begs the question though... other than children, how many "new" computer users are there?

by dhimes 15y ago

riffic 15y ago

agree, in fact UI like this encourages a user to develop bad usage habits, which will remain with them for an indefinite amount of time until these behaviors are (if ever) unlearned.

sukuriant 15y ago
What are bad usage habits? (since we're on topic: I'm an MS employee. I do not work on Windows Explorer)
- bostonvaulter2 15y ago
  I'm guessing riffic meant using the copy and paste buttons instead of the keyboard shortcuts, but I don't agree that that is a "bad usage habit".

cwbrandsma 15y ago

Work in support sometime. It is EXTREMELY common to find users that really don't know about right-click. Or that double-click everything. These are not new users either, they have been using computers for decades. For new users I might agree that they could figure out a right click because everything is new. But for users where everything is familiar ("I've always done it this way"), it gets much harder to break those expected actions. Second part is about explorer itself. While it might seem like a common utility (even necessary), I find it very rare for a general user to know about it (my wife does not, nor my parents, siblings, their friends,...but my wife's father does). Once they see it, they have no idea what to do. Copy a file? Really, they have no idea.

ajross 15y ago
Do those users use the desktop shell at all though? In my experience with novice users (across platforms: Mac noobs are no better) is that they only know enough to launch apps. They never touch the desktop integration at all.
- sukuriant 15y ago
  When my grandfather uses the computer, he reorganizes the desktop, and puts files in folders, and sometimes wants to delete things, yes. All of those actions require knowing how to [delete], [open folders], [drag and drop].
- alextingle 15y ago
  This is only because the Finder/Explorer has been made harder and harder to use. Apple's OSX Finder is a shocking UI abomination. Their old MacOS Finder was clear and simple - my wife would spend hours arranging her work in coloured folders, each of which opened in a window whose shape and position she had chosen, and was meaningful to her. It was a powerful tool that enabled her to arrange and group her work. Now, both Apple and Microsoft compete with each other over how bad they can make their file system interface. Microsoft wanted to do away with the filesystem in Longhorn, and Apple have actually done so in iOS. Is this progress??
  - GeneralMaximus 15y ago
    Are you talking about spatial mode? That still exists in Finder. Just hit Cmd+Opt+T or select "Hide Toolbars" from the View menu. You're absolutely right. I don't have the citation on me right now, but spatial mode has been found to be easier to grasp for new users in every single test ever. The only reason it was dropped was because (1) Windows Explorer, (2) power users whined about too many open windows and (3) a lot of people got used to URLs opening in the same window thanks to web browsers, so people sought to apply the same principles to file browsers. Spatial mode used to be default on GNOME for a long time. There, too, it was dropped because of the same reasons. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_file_manager http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_file_manager and http://www.bytebot.net/geekdocs/spatial-nautilus.html http://www.bytebot.net/geekdocs/spatial-nautilus.html

tjogin 15y ago

Invisible actions are harder to discover than visible ones, not that illogical really, and one of the key ways in which the Mac is more user friendly as it depends on context menus to a lesser degree.

dhimes 15y ago
While I agree with all of your points, keep in mind that when 'civilians' were just getting to use computers (being forced to at work, etc.), Mac lost in favor of the IBM-compatibles (what people started calling 'pc's). There are a lot of reasons for this, to be sure, but difficulty of using the PC was not something that carried much weight in the argument (I was there for the arguments, and I was a mac man).
- wpietri 15y ago
  True, but for reasons closely related to this discussion. Back in the day, the benefits of Macs were mostly invisible to novices when making a purchase decision. PCs looked cheaper and safer. Apple has learned a lesson here. They are now heavily optimized for ease and comfort of purchase.

51Cards 15y ago

Yes but people don't WANT to learn things like this. My mother doesn't want to remember what mouse button to click or that CTRL or ALT is a modifier on this command. I would argue that THIS is what made Apple's OS hang on all those years it was in the severe minority. There is a segment of the population that wants only one mouse button to click, not 3, not 3 plus CTRL or ALT or etc. Apple did end up having to rely heavily on their option key to extend functionality but at its root the UI was designed so that the average user could do things in a simple, straightforward way. MS sees visually exposing commands to the user as their way to do it and while I may not entirely agree, I don't think it's without merit. My kudos to them for also letting me as a "power user" collapse the "newbie visual noise" off my screen and drop what I want on a custom quick access bar. Remember: don't let your status as a power user cloud your view of how your grandmother might want to use her computer. There are FAR more 'grandmother' grade users than there are us.

dhimes 15y ago
Then why are the ipad and iphone taking off? It's really hard to learn to do things on those devices. It's cumbersome to turn off wifi and bluetooth to save battery. The control location makes no sense in the settings menu (to my mind, anyway). I was a HUGE Apple fan for the early Macs. I totally get what you are saying. But we LOST in the workplace. It was just too slow for the other folks in the office to use (of course, the real death blow was having only a graphics mode to the display so the typing was dreadfully slow-- and the secretaries wouldn't use them- but that's another story). But I get your point. That's why I phrased my response as I did. I have never done UI/UX testing- maybe the parent has and was sharing his insight. But if we are all just speculating, I've got to throw out a shout for the other point of view. Yes, too many (how many is too many? I don't know) and it gets to be like using VIM. But two buttons? Seems like it should be ok.
- serge2k 15y ago
  Probably because people think it looks fun and are wiling to put in the few minutes it takes to not a be completely useless with the device.
- 15y ago

nickknw 15y ago

> In fact, if I were asked to guess, I would have answered that most new users would pick up pretty quickly how to use context menus As someone who has done a fair amount of tutoring seniors on basic computer usage, I have a large amount of anecdotal evidence to indicate this is definitely not the case for them. Depending on the person, I would sometimes try to not show them context menus or keyboard shortcuts at all and just teach them how to use the File, Edit, etc. menus. There are people who just want to learn the correct order of incantations so that they can check their mail and do things with their photos. And that's okay! Trying to show them that that there is more than one way to do a given action often just leads to confusion as they meld them together (right click on Edit..) I have seen a fair amount of people with a similar approach as well, but my largest body of personal experience comes from the tutoring, which is why I mentioned it.

xtracto 15y ago
>There are people who just want to learn the correct order of incantations so that they can check their mail and do things with their photos I have been seeing the same thing with research colleagues. What a lot of us in IT or related fields do not "get" from normal users is that the way they "see" the icons and pictures in the computer is completely different from what we do. We have a "mental model" of what Word or Excel or Firefox is doing. Some of us have a more accurate and detailed model than others. But "normal" users only know what they see and what will happen after they do something (either because they have done it before or because we told them, and they trust us). For them, there is no more meaning to "click on the File menu" than if a Scuba diver told you to "check your SPG every 10 minutes".

Qz 15y ago

The main problem with right clicking is that right clicking does a myriad different things depending on what is being clicked on, whereas left clicking almost always does the same thing.

larrywright 15y ago

It begs the question though... other than children, how many "new" computer users are there?