[ubuntu-uk] Mac Frustration (was Remote support was Sad but true? etc.)

[Ian Betteridge]

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 2:08 AM, Simon Wears <munkyjunky at googlemail.com> wrote:
> I'm very uncomfortable using Apple computers. My friend bought one about 2
> years ago, I still struggle to use it. It seems to try to be different so
> much, it becomes a little unusable (in my opinion). Case example is (again,
> 2 years ago) I started college. My girlfriend is an artist, and had to do
> some work in Photoshop. She took me up to the art computers to help her get
> used to it, and I was utterly confused about how to even OPEN Photoshop!
> Then, getting the pictures from her camera was a pain, so we decided to
> close the program. I couldn't even work out how to do that...

You plug in the camera. iPhoto opens. It asks you if you want to
download the pictures. It does it. At least, that's what happens for
pretty-much every camera out there. Pretty much like what happens with
F-Spot in Ubuntu these days!

And for people coming from a Windows background, that's often where
they trip up with Macs - the answer is just too obvious, too easy, and
therefore it's not what they're looking for. They expect to have to
delve into Photoshop or run some bespoke third party software just to
get pictures off a camera or use a scanner or whatever. So, that's
what they're looking for.

(BTW, I'm not saying that's what happened with you - there may have
just been something broken on the machine, or the camera was one of
the very very few which won't work like that, or whatever).

> When people ask me about getting a Mac, I often tell them to instead bring
> their laptop in sometime, and I could give them Ubuntu, meaning they get
> increased performance, better security, an OS that would do everything they
> needed, and wouldnt have to spend £1000 on a Mac. Ubuntu is (obviously) not
> Windows, but people who come use my computer get how to do everything
> instantly from never having even heard of Linux before. The most anyone has
> every been lost is by acidentally switching to another desktop and thinking
> everything closed.

You'd be surprised about what baffles people when switching platforms.
I recently encountered someone who was very confused by the idea of
going to Add/Remove Applications to *find* new apps. They thought that
was a really, really dumb idea. That's not what the similarly-named
thing on Windows does, so they hated it.

There's two ways of looking at design for switchers. The first is to
try and make everything work the way Windows works. The problem with
that is that Windows has lots of interface design choices that are
really dumb, and that if you're not wedded to Windows look like
candidates for change. The other option is to simply ignore Windows
switchers, and design what you think works best.

Personally, I think the second option is best. Create the absolute
best, easiest-to-use interface you can, and see if people get it. If
they don't, keep evolving.