Having seen the "documentation" accompanying my boiler, I have a serious suspicion thta nuclear reactors do work like that, which is why people from the manufacturers/builders have to be sent there to work on-site for about a year to explain, probably not very efficiently (they aren't trained teachers, after all, so they can hardly be blamed for this) how the thing actually works. And when something does go a bit wrong, someone has to be sent over there again to sort it out. Unless it's Chernobyl.
The problem with the consumer-related products is that this is not cost-efficient, so the "idea" is to create something which users can solve for themselves, via Help files. Since these are universally useless (nearly all Microsoft- and other software-related solutions to problems that I encounter are usually gleaned from amatuer users on the web, rather than from the employees related to putting the thing together -- probably because the amateur user has more in common with my "user experience" than the designers, and so he will be more likley to come up with the solution to the problem that I face, rather than a solution to a problem that I am not facing and am never likely to face) it doesn't really make much difference that they aren't available (although the "assumptions" of knowledge in the first place remain irritating). Where I HAVE gone wrong is being a bit too early-adopterish, which means that the library of amateur guides and solutions has yet to appear on the web. I hope, in a small way, that this post might one day help someone solve the "unlocking" problem!
Anyhoo, as I said, since the interfaces are nearly universally useless (I think that Google Picasa is a rare exception here in that I have never needed to try to work out how something is done) I thought that I might as well go with an OS that, when you finally figure it out, works faster than the others.
Finally, here's an interesting pic from the new Android market.
(http://tinypic.com?ref=mljvxi)
Note that here, they do have the word abbreviations! So I assume that the decision was made either to remove them from the HOME page, or to insert them here because it was plain that just having the icons was insufficently clear. Either way, the interface designers seem to be contradicting themselves about whether the word Apps (I think it's fair enough to call it a word) is needed or it isn't. In one place they think that it's needed, but in another, they don't.
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Re: So Shall Ye Reap
Date: 2010-12-19 06:53 pm (UTC)The problem with the consumer-related products is that this is not cost-efficient, so the "idea" is to create something which users can solve for themselves, via Help files. Since these are universally useless (nearly all Microsoft- and other software-related solutions to problems that I encounter are usually gleaned from amatuer users on the web, rather than from the employees related to putting the thing together -- probably because the amateur user has more in common with my "user experience" than the designers, and so he will be more likley to come up with the solution to the problem that I face, rather than a solution to a problem that I am not facing and am never likely to face) it doesn't really make much difference that they aren't available (although the "assumptions" of knowledge in the first place remain irritating). Where I HAVE gone wrong is being a bit too early-adopterish, which means that the library of amateur guides and solutions has yet to appear on the web. I hope, in a small way, that this post might one day help someone solve the "unlocking" problem!
Anyhoo, as I said, since the interfaces are nearly universally useless (I think that Google Picasa is a rare exception here in that I have never needed to try to work out how something is done) I thought that I might as well go with an OS that, when you finally figure it out, works faster than the others.
Finally, here's an interesting pic from the new Android market.
Note that here, they do have the word abbreviations! So I assume that the decision was made either to remove them from the HOME page, or to insert them here because it was plain that just having the icons was insufficently clear. Either way, the interface designers seem to be contradicting themselves about whether the word Apps (I think it's fair enough to call it a word) is needed or it isn't. In one place they think that it's needed, but in another, they don't.
PJ