On Thursday 03 March 2005 12:02, Gavin McCullagh wrote: > which I agree with is that ordinary, non-technical users do not want > choice (not initially anyway). It simply causes confusion. The > technical person should make the (initial) choice for them. I definately wouldn't say that non-technical users don't want choice, it's just that they want sensible defaults so they aren't forced to spend time making the choice (yes this amounts to basically the same thing, yet at the same time it somehow doesn't).
> If there are several hundred such users in a school, it will simplify
> everything greatly if everyone uses one office suite.
On the one hand I agree that having a single program of each class makes
support easier...
BUT for basic use (i.e. excluding macro's and similar advanced features) it
really shouldn't matter which office suit (or e-mail client, or browser,
or ...) you're using. If it does matter that arguably points to the fact
that the user is unfamiliar with the basic concepts behind each class of
programs, i.e. it points to a clear lack of skills that the school should
remedie, not work around.
By having different programs of the same class available, and having
students switch between them at times [1]. You teach them to look for the
concepts behind the interface, instead of just learning the interface by
heart.
Does this involve a learning curve? For most users yes (at least in my
experience).
Should a school avoid this? Definately not, afterall the whole point of
schools is having people learn, and in today's world computer skills are
(increasingly) a neccesity.
[1] note that this does require standard formats, so that moving from one
program to another doesn't pose compatibility problems.
> On top of that, they need to
> be guaranteed file interoperability which KWord and OOo Writer don't make
> obvious (by defaulting to different formats).
only currently as they're both in the process of moving to the OASIS format
by default (koffcie 1.4, and openoffice 2.0 will both use the same
standarized format by default) -> in this case that's merely a matter of
time, it's being worked on.
--
cobaco (aka Bart Cornelis):
Coördinator Belgisch Skolelinux team
Coördinator Nederlandse Skolelinux vertaling
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