Re: Proof of the Mac's intuitiveness

PC Guy wrote:


"Erich Kohl" <synth.virtuoso@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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PC Guy wrote:


"Erich Kohl" <synth.virtuoso@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:qh27j.76959$YL5.37874@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Sun, 09 Dec 2007 23:38:05 +0000, Mayor of R'lyeh wrote:

[snip]

The funny thing is that he actually thinks this is a big deal.
How many thousands of times had his niece watched others do the
same thing? Now these kids figured out Windows from dead stop. I
guess that makes it infinitely more intuitive than the Mac.
http://www.greenstar.org/butterflies/Hole-in-the-Wall.htm

She's just as comfortable on my Windows machine as she was on my
iMac. She has a grasp of most of the basics. But I'm not sure if
she ever touched a Mac before.

Is it a big deal? Not huge in the grand context of the universe,
but I just think that all of these small design details ultimately
add up to make a big difference to the end user, especially
children or non- technical people.

You don't think it's a big deal but presented it as proof of the
Macs intuitiveness?

I have to justify my actions to you because...?

Because you want to look intelligent. Until then you look like a fool
stating something that's "no big deal" as proof of something.

I'm not sure if I like the idea of you pretending to be an authority on
what *I* want, but sure, I admit, I desire to look intelligent. Most
of the time, doesn't everybody?

Look, I don't know anymore if it's a "big deal," and I don't know if
it's a "small deal." Technically what I said was that it's "not huge
in the grand context of the universe." I was trying to put it into
some perspective (if that's not perspective, I don't know what is!).

I admit I may have blown things out of proportion somewhat. After all,
they're just buttons that close windows. The economy and the war in
Iraq, on the other hand, are big deals.

What I do think, however, is that these small design details do matter,
and they can have an effect on the person using the machine. Like I've
already explained in other parts of this thread, I wanted to use the
anecdote of my niece experimenting with my iMac as an excuse to
initiate some discussion about the good and bad design aspects of user
interfaces, about how the various UI elements work together to make
things easier on the end-user (especially a child who is gradually
trying to figure things out). I thought that saying something nice
about the Mac -- especially in a Mac advocacy newsgroup -- would result
in that type of feedback. And it was partially successful, since I
believe Snit responded to my post with some interesting insight into
what I was trying to get at.

So, that's all I was trying to do.

And you know what? In many ways, Windows is also intuitive, just like
the Mac. That's something we can also learn from this. (I'm typing
this reply on my Vista PC, by the way. I'm not a Mac nut.)

Take the Windows Start menu, for example. It's merely a button in the
corner of the screen that provides access to your programs and
documents -- a pretty simple concept. Is it a big deal? Because if
not, we should just go back to using the Windows 3.0 interface -- you
know, Program Manager, the absence of a true desktop, etc.

You can share your thoughts with me on this if you want.
.

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