[Usability] User knowledge level setting

[Fredrik Rambris <fredrik rambris com>]

A feature I came up with quite some time ago is to have a userwide
setting where I set my level of knowledge of computer usage. Then on
each program I can override this.

The purpose of this is to hide or present different views to the program
for different users. Say I'm a database expert, I know my way around a
GUI but a complete goofball with graphics. I could set the userwide user
level to Average (of Beginner, Average and Expert). On my database-admin
software I would set Expert and on GIMP I would set Beginner.

When in GIMP some advanced features are hidden from me to not to clutter
the display and give me a reasonable selection of tools.

My database-GUI would spill it's guts for me letting me tinker with
everything from tabledesign to buffersizes and number of threads.

Another way of doing this it to have a clean front window and put all
the expert stuff in a sub window. But that gets in the way when you know
what you're doing having to go in and out of subwindows etc.

Some programs could just hide some options while others would have to
redesign some or parts of windows to make in natural for each level.

I have not received any comment on this before when I posted it in some
"the-features-I-want-for-the-next-gen-AmigaOS"-survey in the mid
nineties. I would like to hear your thougts on this.

/ Fredrik
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