Journal Journal: Jane Imac and Allen Oscar Little
You know, since I posted on the Olympics web site story I've been thinking about Jane Imac and Allen Oscar Little and our roll, as technologists to make their life better. A good number of the folks here on /. believe that it is the user's job to understand technology. I disagree. It is our job to make it easier for them. Looking over the direction of the last 15 years or so we have moved from modal character based interfaces to modeless GUI interfaces.
In the days of the modal interface computing was easier for the end user. Let's face it there was menu with X options. You could only go down or up. The computer only did one thing at a time. so the enduser could only do one thing at a time.
Flash forward 15 years. Whether we are discussing Windows, Mac or Linux all the major operating systems support some sort of GUI. Where the free form nature of a GUI may appeal to the nature of the hackers here it really doesn't agree with human nature. People only want a few options and to be led around by hand in a situation with isn't natural to them, and let's face it most folks don't consider technology natural. Also people don't multi-task. The naturally do one thing at a time. So running a data entry screen, reading email, surfing the web as well as working on a spread sheet is also unnatural.
We need to think about these things when we design computers. A computer need to be an extention of the end user and how that end user thinks. At the end of the day the users are not going to change the computers will. We need to embrace this now.
Just my $.02 cents worth...
In the days of the modal interface computing was easier for the end user. Let's face it there was menu with X options. You could only go down or up. The computer only did one thing at a time. so the enduser could only do one thing at a time.
Flash forward 15 years. Whether we are discussing Windows, Mac or Linux all the major operating systems support some sort of GUI. Where the free form nature of a GUI may appeal to the nature of the hackers here it really doesn't agree with human nature. People only want a few options and to be led around by hand in a situation with isn't natural to them, and let's face it most folks don't consider technology natural. Also people don't multi-task. The naturally do one thing at a time. So running a data entry screen, reading email, surfing the web as well as working on a spread sheet is also unnatural.
We need to think about these things when we design computers. A computer need to be an extention of the end user and how that end user thinks. At the end of the day the users are not going to change the computers will. We need to embrace this now.
Just my $.02 cents worth...
