On Apr 30, 2010, at 12:24 , Bob W wrote:
My experience was different. I came from paper tape to teletype to
mainframe
green screens to DOS and then to Windows and I can still remember how
difficult I found the mouse to control and how unintuitive it was to
use the
interface until someone had explained it to me. It was months before I
realised how to copy a file by dragging and dropping, and during
that time I
always opened a DOS box when I needed to copy a file.
I wasn't alone - I witnessed similar things in many people,
experienced and
naïve computer users alike, including young children bringing no
background
knowledge to it. Calling the WIMP interface intuitive was a
masterpiece of
marketing, but bears no relationship to reality. One of the Star
Trek films
captured it nicely when the crew came back in time to the 1980s and
Scotty
tried to use the mouse as a microphone to talk to the computer.
Has something to do with the way the brain is hardwired. Some people
can drive a car easily, even get the feel so they can race them
comfortably. Others can't parallel park the damn things!
Artsy types, or hybrids like me, have no problems with a GUI. Those
who tend to think literally, like if it's not in a spreadsheet it
makes no sense, can't relax enough to "go with the flow" of a GUI.
We need both types. So we all be cool!
If it doesn’t excite you,
This thing that you see,
Why in the world,
Would it excite me?
—Jay Maisel
Joseph McAllister
pentax...@mac.com
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