Computers are still hard to use. If the iPad takes off, it’s with this group of people for whom even the Mac is more difficult than it needs to be.
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Computers are still hard to use. If the iPad takes off, it’s with this group of people for whom even the Mac is more difficult than it needs to be.
Related posts:
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#1 by Alex on 2010/02/01 - 5:47 pm
At the very least, having Apple’s UI guidelines thrust in the public sphere should help UI designers on other platforms finally realise that no, squeezing another button into that interface is probably not a good way to solve the problem.
The most irrational people I’ve met have been in corporate IT shops, where programming is done as a “get the user off my back” exercise, rather than a “how can I help this user get their work done faster” exercise.
Anyway, it seems I’m developing a bad habit of posting replies longer than your blog entries. Sorry!
#2 by clark on 2010/02/02 - 9:30 pm
Hey, I like replies. Let’s me think my posting isn’t pure narcissism.
I’m not sure UI guidelines help. Having done IT in the 90′s for a large company the reality is that you are typically doing hacks because you don’t have time for anything else. Most IT departments are woefully understaffed and managed by people who don’t really understand computers. You tend to only get noticed when things go wrong and there’s no comprehension of how hard some things you get right are. (There was a great XKCD comic about this a few months back which I can’t find for the life of me – contrasting what a great programmer in academia experiences versus IT)
When I quit IT the guy who replaced me couldn’t do a quarter of what I could do and they offered me the job back at twice the pay. But by then I had no desire to go back to that grind.