On 21/04/09 03:18, Laslo Hunhold wrote:
> You can build software with the goal of user-friendliness in mind, but
> this always comes with concessions. As long as you provide consistent
> and easy to understand user-interfaces (APIs, Synopses, etc.), it is, I
> think, the user's turn to try to understand them to the fullest, even
> if it means learning a bit of a programming language.
>
> How do the others see it?
I think that "user friendliness" carries complexity with it that is just being
concealed from the user. There are prejudices about what is "friendlier": having
a complex program that does a lot of things with little to no input, which also
means less control, or having a simple program that does one thing well, is
simple enough to understand and works well with other such simple programs. It
becomes apparent when there is some error or something unpredicted happens: it
is often difficult to diagnose the error and equally difficult, if not
impossible, to present a working solution for a "user friendly" (=complex)
program compared to a simple program. The solution in the case of a simple
program is exact and textual, easily transmitted in digital form or pronounced,
compared to the difficulty of having to describe where exactly, and how to click
in a GUI.
Received on Fri Apr 09 2021 - 17:24:09 CEST