Re: The path of least blame

[Juan Manuel Santos <vicariousdm gmail com>]

On Monday, August 08, 2011 14:50:00 Tim Murphy wrote:
> The whole problem sort of comes from the fact that the idea of an
> "Application" is an oddity.
> 
> What we really have are objects in the users' perspective - web pages of
> streams of commands in a terminal or documents in an editor.  Thinking about
> "Applications" gets in the way of seeing the problem - when I'm using a
> computer I think about the things I'm working on, not the software
> equivalent of a pen or scissors that I am using to perform the work.
> 

First of all I am not a G-S user, although I do follow this list because I am 
mainly interested in the design concepts and the discussions that pop up.

I wanted to have my say on this however. While I do agree with the rest of 
your email, specially the consistency part, I do think that this quoted 
statement here may not be true for everybody. I believe it is generally not 
true for power users.

Just to give you an example: due to my work, I have to use Lotus Notes for the 
company's email. But I also have KMail installed for my personal email (I have 
several accounts and having multiple browsers opened for each is a no-go, not 
to mention the fact that I hate webmail with a passion :)). So, I am never 
thinking "I want to open my email" or "I need to open the company's email". I 
think that if that were true, I would simply rename the shortcuts to 
"Personal/Work email". Since I have two distinct applications to handle email, 
my mind thinks of the application instead of the task. It may well be that I 
have it internalized, but I am generally not fond of the "semantic" concept of 
the desktop (though I do agree that it may be useful for other types of 
users).

This goes on with other types of applications. I use emesene for MSN and 
Pidgin for the rest of my IM accounts. I use both Firefox and Chrome. I use 
Konversation for work IRC, and Quassel for personal IRC, etc. I agree I am not 
your common user, but please bear in mind that there may be some users that do 
think about application, and do not see them as odd at all.

Peace and cheers
Juan Manuel Santos