I think the history of synthesizers is quite an interesting example
of what happens in the real world.
Back in late seventies, most synths had wonderful UIs (ie. lots of
single-function knobs and buttons).
Sequential Circuits (RIP) had noticed, even then, that 90% of the
synths returned for service had nothing but the factory presets in them.
Yamaha, having fallen behind in the synth market, had presumably
noticed the same thing, and in the early 80s, came up with the DX7,
which was a very complex synth, with a truly dreadful UI (a small
number of multi-function membrane switches, a slider, and a 2 line
LCD). However, it came with a bunch of really usable presets, (eg the
cheesy, tinkling faux electric-piano, still popular in 'smooth jazz'
today). It was, however, about half the price of the then current
generation of synths, and it sold like hot-cakes.
Sequential eventually responded with some very good products with
similar (though better) UIs. Sadly, they never got their presets very
good, and by '87 they were out of business, as were Oberheim and
Moog. To this day, the synth with the best (and greatest number) of
presets beats the competition. It's circular, of course, as most of
them are so hard to program, that few people have the time or
patience to bother, so the necessity for for good presets is obvious.
If even musicians (supposedly a creative bunch) aren't generally
willing to delve into creating their own sounds, then what can we
expect of the overworked and time-strapped office worker trying to
put letters, presentations etc. together? It seems to me that as the
software gets more and more capable, it must, to some extent, get
more complex, and so this MS thing is both necessary and inevitable.
Cheers,
mark
On 11 Oct 2005, at 21:30, jbv wrote:
Scott Rossi a *crit :
Actually, there is a difference: not how things *should* look but
how things
*can* look. Again, the premise is that users are more comfortable
modifying
existing designs/layouts/templates, rather than starting from
scratch. The
template designers are giving users a starting point, which they
can either
choose to use as is, or modify to their liking.
IMHO this is the kind of approach that works perfectly
on paper, but not so well in real life...
Let's take the example of electronic music devices (synths,
rhythm-boxes, etc). Since the mid 80's most of them come
with numerous presets, but also with editors...
I've been in touch with many musicians between the early
80's to the late 90's and I must say that very few of them
took the time to learn how to program / edit / modify...
Most of them seemed to be satisfied with presets, and used
to sell the device and buy another (brand new) one once they
got tired of the presets.
It is true that UIs of this kind of gear were rather crappy (tiny
LCDs), but anyway the vast creative possibility of some synths
were really worth the effort of reading the manual and try to go
beyond the presets (for example additive synthesis with the
K5000).
I afraid that providing too many templates might lead to
lazyness for users, and in the end every document / layout / etc
might look the same, just like every piece of electronic music
sounds the same these days...
JB
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