On Wed, May 25, 2005 at 09:54:37AM -0500, JD Runyan wrote: > Todd Walton wrote: > >On 5/24/05, Stewart Stremler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >>What's this obsession with global menus? > > > > > >Okay. Then, no menus? Icons to launch a given set of applications, > >and the rest from some sort of command line? Would you give this to > >your one-button Mom? > > > >-todd > > > > > My mom isn't so dumb. She uses an oven with knobs and buttons. She uses > a calculator that changes behavior at the flip of a switch, and she > drives two different cars that have different radio controls and. I > think that she can also figure out differences in computers. It is the > 55 and older crowd who seem to get confused. My mom falls just under > this, and my Dad just above it. We are not going to change the world by > converting them. The ones who already use computers regularly could be > converted, the others don't care. If you want to change a view or > attitude in society, then you must change the hearts and minds of the young. >
While I agree with most of what you say, I would like to add this from my experience. I sometimes supply old refurbs running FC3 to seniors. The boxen are strictly for light word processing and web browsing plus email. I boot them into X, give them rudimentary instruction in the interface and their apps, and let 'em go. We're talking people 75 - 85 here (hmm ... not sounding all too far away, alas). Here's my experience. Some get it, and rather quickly. Some don't, and I don't hold out much hope. A computer is a unique machine to operate in many ways. When you drive a car, you don't need to understand thermodynamics, metallurgy, or simple physics (beyond the intuitive physics we all learn by dropping banana slices from our high chairs). But you do need a clear view of the road. To operate a computer, you need a mental image of the road, too. You'll never make it work until you understand where your computer is on the web, what your dial-up connection does (interestingly, most seniors have cable TV, DVD players, etc, but they see the extra expense of a cable internet connection as exorbitant and unnecessary -- go figure!), etc. The people I'm describing who don't get it can't understand concepts like saving files. I draw pictures. We talk. If I see the lights go on, I know they'll be OK. If I see blank acceptance or stubborn confusion, I know they don't see the road they're planning to travel, and they will do bizarre and unpredictable things and eventually abandon the computer as "too hard." I don't think it's intelligence, and I don't think it's age. I'm not sure, really, what it is. We're all good at something and we're all bad at something (I'm musically hopeless, which is funny, because I _like_ music). This isn't the first human endeavor that has required the ability to trace events not seen (I mean real events, not theology). Auto mechanics, internists, electronic engineers have always had to have X-ray vision in their fields. But this may be the first time appliance end users have ever been asked to steer their possessions down roads that exist just in their minds. -- Lan Barnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux Guy, SCM Specialist 858-354-0616 -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
