[Sussex] Improving on UNIX

[Geoffrey Teale]

Mark,

I've snipped out your posting because (for once) I have nothing to add or 
argue with. All I can say is that I think that this is a really fascinating 
debate - most interestingly of all, it raises the issue that what us techies 
focus on (ie. what is technically best) is not always the best solution for 
you users.

As the guy said in the article I mentioned earlier "Do we hate our users that 
much?" - the answer is invariably "No", but I guess sometimes it must seem 
that way.

In all the systems and process analysis I've ever been involved in I can hold 
up my hand and say that the mistake I have made most often is this - I can 
understand the system perfectly, I can see how to automate it and improve the 
process immeasurably, but only occasionaly have I ever understood the users 
themselves and in terms of UI at least this usually leads to systems that 
they feel uncomfortable with.   The biggest struggle we still have to face in 
modern computing is simply this - how do we take something as incredibly 
complex as a computer program and present in the real world terms that an 
average human being can understand.

When we talk about intuition we tend to assume that an intuitive system is one 
that follows the general style of the system (Microsoft push standardisation 
of interfaces for their platform as very important).   To me, these are not 
intuitive systems at all but merely familiar systems.  THe holy grail of 
intuition is a UI that tribesman from the Amazon can use without instruction 
on the very first time he ever sees a computer - to achieve this we need to 
think beyond window manager design and go right back to how we do I/O with 
the system at all.

Long live this level of discussion on the LUG!

-- 
GJT
tealeg at member.fsf.org
Free Software Foundation