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Re: Options and choises rant


From: Dennis Leeuw
Subject: Re: Options and choises rant
Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 14:06:15 +0100
User-agent: Debian Thunderbird 1.0.2 (X11/20051002)

Sašo Kiselkov wrote:
I totally agree that non-technical users (i.e. most of humanity) are certainly
very confused by lots of buttons and choices. I also agree with the general
reduction of clutter on windows - it's often unnecessary in apps not targeted
for the technical audience.

However, I'd like to discurage from removing features for the sake of simplicity
- that's not the right way to do it. Look at how NeXT did it instead. The
features were present and their presence on screen was configurable, but only
when the user requested them would they be moved into the user's visiblity
field, i.e. they were not enabled by default. Say, for example, the Workspace
Manager didn't display any hidden files in your system by default (e.g. stuff
like /usr, /tmp, .dotfiles etc.), but making it so is just a few clicks away -
bring up Preferences, choose 'UNIX Expert' preferences and turn on 'Expert File
System'.

I think you have a very true point here. It says what I mean. Unix Expert is what is meant. Not the need to remove features, but to "hide" them more logically. So people who do not care do not have to see them. The application can be made to appear simple, but still have all the advanced features.

Thanks,

Dennis



--
"It is not necessary to change.
 After all, survival is not mandatory."
        Dr. W. Edwards Deming




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