On Fri, 10 Dec 2004 12:13:29 +0100, Florent Rougon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I'm just trying to understand > people who bash dselect on the first occasion. If you don't like dselect > and don't fall in one of the cases I have mentioned, then we have a > problem. Simply preferring aptitude is *not* a valid reason to say > dselect is ugly, difficult to use, <insert typical dselect bashing crap > here>. Question: does awkward, non-intuitive user interface for a text-based utility constitute a "problem"? I don't care for dselect primarily because, for whatever reason, the user interface constantly rubs me the wrong way. Although I have read the documentation, I almost always remember it wrongly, hit the wrong keys, etc. etc. After working with it for half an hour or so, I regain my proficiency... but after 6 months of not using it all that minutia is lost to my active memory, and -- once again -- my intuition about how a text-based application SHOULD work fails me. Do I consider this a problem? Not particularly. It is my problem, as much as anyone's. This is a sophisticated sysadmin tool, and I am only an occasional sysadmin, by no means sophisticated. > > (f) bash dselect 'cause someone else said it was crap > However, if you believe that user interface is important, it might behoove you to listen to your users: people don't usually grow to "hate" a system administration utility simply because it's the hip thing to do. Of course there may be some unreasonable, or even plain-stupid users: but if you believe that user interface is important, you even have to think about how to make *them* happy. An owner, interested in user interface, might take it upon him- or herself to start a thread asking for interface suggestions, in a place where users congregate. Ask questions like: "What text-based applications do you consider to be examples of good design?" Focus on the distinction between navigation and data-altering events. Consider on-screen cheatsheets that advanced users can disable. Ensure that there are sufficient and obvious undo paths with multiple roll-back points. I am a software developer too -- I know the temptation to mock users who just don't get it when "it" is perfectly obvious. (I recently rolled out some web software in which a table interface had graphical links: up and down arrows at the top of each column, right below the column label. The number one complaint was: "This is useless. There's no way to sort!" Are my users dumb as dirt? Apparently they are. Is it their problem? No, it's mine.) Anyway, something to think about. -bluejack -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-