Re: RGSG

[Tom Vogt <tom lemuria org>]

Dan Effugas Kaminsky <effugas@best.com> wrote:
> All I know is, anybody who has ever used a computer before is gonna be
> thrown for a loop with Exit not being in the file menu.  I just asked my
> girlfriend--NOT a computer geek, let me tell you :-)  And she
> said..."But...but..it just belongs there...even if you told me, I'd
> like...go to file...then be like, oh, it's not there, it's in here, oops"

that's ok. you see, ESPECIALLY the simple users are easily confused if
something changes. they don't understand this whole computer stuff at all,
so they go by what they're used to. they're afraid if ANYTHING changes, so
if you post that argument, you can kill ANY change with it.

the question is what will her opinion be once she got used to the new thing?
and how long will it take?

if it takes a few minutes before she can find it instantly and an hour
before she's used to it, that's a very good argument that it's more
intuitively and should be used. if she didn't get it a month later, that's
quite bad.

new users will be afraid of ANY change we make. any and all. it doesn't
matter, because switching to a new environment they do EXPECT changes. hell,
they're usually afraid of all the new stuff if it's just a switch from win
3.1 to  win 3.11




-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
		-- Henry Spencer