Quick brainstorming (long)

[Eric Dunbar]

Ok, because I left too many thoughts half finished...

On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 07:57:08 -0500, Eric Dunbar <eric.dunbar at gmail.com> wrote:
> & paradoxical extremes of US politics (& CA politics for those of you
> who follow them)), too much choice is bad (Italian/Israeli politics...

CAlifornia (with its "safe" districts), not CAnada (where an
uncharacteristically (for Canada, at least) vibrant political scene
exists federally at the moment).

> I use the political analogy merely to highlight the idea of choice as
> in "freedom choice". People are stymied when they face too much choice.

With too much choice they don't know which one to choose and, rather
than learn, they reflexively retreat and don't explore (thus, are
restricted).

Likewise, people are hampered by too little choice (some of the bad
GUI design decisions of Apple in the early 90s).

A fine balance exists between too much and too little choice as
outline above. Apple (IMNSHO) is doing a reasonable job of it
nowadays, but I am not advocating a Mac OS X clone (in Ubuntu). GUI
designers everywhere can learn from Apple -- they've spent a lot of
money making sure that their computers just work. Apple hides settings
and features that are rarely used or not-so-useful, and make the ones
that are often used _or_ USEFUL easily accessible. THAT should be the
goal, not providing the user with so many features that they retreat
into defaults because they are scared of breaking their computer or
intimidated by what's possible (I had this experience myself with
earlier versions of Linux... too many options, too little time or
_incentive_ to learn them (I'm no ideologue)). And, that's also not
the design philosophy that seems to be driving Ubuntu - K.I.S.S. (keep
it simple stupid).

(limited, but useful choice is why I think Mac users, despite working
on a more "restrictive" OS than Windows have inevitably been more
willing to explore their (and others') computers, and _often_ (even
now that Win XP is fairly good) are more knowledgeable of what is
possible on Windows than native Windows users because they learned
what was USEFULLY possible on their Macs. In the late 90s this was
highlighted to me when experienced Windows users would inevitably be
stunned to learn that I had never used a Windows 3.1/95/98/ME computer
in my life... when I'd trouble shoot their computers' software
problems and fix problems/do things they hadn't imagined possible (I'm
really not tooting my horn... these were simply things that Mac OS
made EASY and were possible under Windows, but, because Windows
offered so many MORE (not-so-useful) things to do, people simply
didn't discover they could do these things because they were scared
they'd break their computers or were intimidated by too much choice
(and these were invariably _smart_ people since this were the honours
& grad students).

> could say that Mac users are simply superior to Windows (loo)users ;-)
> whilst right-clicking isn't.

<tongue in cheek>

> However, they should
> not be a CRUTCH since MOST people don't know how to use them, or, even
> if they do, they DON'T use them. The idea behind Ubuntu is to make an

I think that's a really important point. Right-click (& middle-click)
should never be crutches upon which developers rely. As soon as you
REQUIRE right-click to do something important, you eliminate that
feature from the skill repertoire of a lot of people (dare I say the
majority). But, at the same time, if your solution to single-click
isn't much better than right-click you should _also_ offer
right-click.

> Ubuntu has gone a long way
> in a short time by choosing fairly sensible defaults but more work is
> necessary to turn Ubuntu into magic. Apple did it with Mac OS X so it
> certainly is possible to take a *nix and "just make it work".

And, as I've stated before, I am not advocating a Mac OS X clone!
Merely pointing out that Apple has done things _right_ far more often
than it hasn't and it is very informative to see what guiding
philosophies/rules lead them to do what they did.

Sincerely, Eric