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GNOME for Grandma
An anonymous reader writes "PCWorld colmnist Matthew Newton has written an interesting two part article titled "In Search of Linux for Grandma", in which he shares his thoughts on introducing computers to a 75 year old PC neophyte (through Linux).
He discusses the new spatial Nautilus that he is planning to unleash upon grandma, and quote from the article - "Grandma is never going to learn about "opening a file manager" to "navigate her way" to her documents. They are all going to live in plain view in folders on her desktop. And when she opens them, there won't be any surprises."."
Do we think Linux is ready for this. Yes I admit if you have some one set it up well, any one can use it. But Grandma might hear of software X and want it. How will the be done, aka, I heard I can do my taxes on the computer with turboTax, can you set it up for me.
what are you going to tell her, if you can not get it to work with wine?
I like the idea, but I am not sure Linux is ready
when she finds out that this revolutionary idea of opening a new window for each folder is one of the first features users turned off in windows 95
Have you Meta Moderated t
It's been my experience that the last sentence you wrote means the person is never going to learn what you are trying to teach them. Why remember when you can just look on that battered, coffee stained, 2 year old sheet of paper that tells you how to do it?
I think Albert Einstein said something similar.
In real life, the teach-a-man-to-fish aphorism is practicle and less painful in the long run.
Note the label "FileSystem" in the Nautilus screenshot.
You just lost Grandma. Heck you just lost my dad.
You want to know how to design a computer for Grandma? You design it like a TV or a toaster is designed. Task oriented rather than open ended.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
Well, the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines are built on this. It's been carefully written to ensure intuitive interfaces, and it has evolved over time - maybe, in my opinion, one of the flagships of GNOME. It's a base for the best part of the whole thing, the interface.
But still, I agree that BugZilla aren't a tool for everyone. Filing a bug about something is for better-knowers, not for the average user. Thus, interface problems won't solve without careful research like you state here.
While the projects were before standalone and small, they've now got big corporations and more money behind them. As long as they don't control the software for their own good, as at least Ximian/Novell never has done, I think the window systems will gain much from this in the years to come.
Being a GNOME supporter myself, I'm very happy with the newest release. But there are still things to fix - a lot of things that seem unpolished and featureless. I miss some extendibility in the spatial nautilus, and easier access to configuration here and there. But as earlier problems have been, these will get eliminated in a while.
This has been a public service announcement from the Grandparents are not Clueless Idiots Association...
Normal service is now being resumed... flame on...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Isn't there a theory that says whenever you want to check if a software is _really_ user-friendly, give it for your mother to try it. If she can use it easily, then anyone will.
Not necessarily. An interface that is easy to learn the first time might be a nightmare to use repeatedly. An interface that is intuitive for a non-computer-literate person might seem idiotic to a more experienced user (MS Bob, anyone?). And an interface that is fundamentally good might seem bad to someone who spent 10 years using Windows.
I more or less forced my family into the posititon of working on a FreeBSD workstation running Gnome. My sister, who has recently turned 18 has adapted amazingly well, as has my mother. My dad couldn't really use a windows computer, so i guess he's the "control" group saying it is equally has difficult. I took back my 1.2Ghz Celeron w/ 1GB of RAM because they were not actually /doing/ anything and I needed my server back. Now all parties are well served. I login via SSH w/ forwared X11 via my iBook G4 and do what I need to do on the FreeBSD machine. They use it physically.
GNOME is "good enough" the way it is. Personally, I wouldn't attempt to make my grandparnts change. My grandpa is 91 and my grandma is 81. They don't really use their computer much, but can do what they do (email and that's about it). For christs sake, they're old enough, you know? why make them suffer more over so trivial an issue?
With all due respect, you're 48. You may be a grandmother, but there's no way (I sincerly hope) that your grandchild(ren) are old enough to build you a computer and be this bent on forcing Linux on you. Those that do have granchildren of that age aren't likely to have nearly the level of technical expertise that people from your age group. My pop's older than you, and uses PGP, open GPG, and absurdly complicated VB scripting regularly, but his mother would be greatly helped by this kind of GUI.
I thought the article to be very insightful/interesting, as it would greatly simplify my grandmother's life.
Sorry, but there are a lot of people who just want it to be a TV, i.e. just another appliance. Not the way most /.ers think of a machine, but try talking to people in other fields (biology, fine arts, etc.). They're not stupid, or lazy, they're just not interested in learning all the cool tricks. Show them a good browser, and be accessible to answer the "how do I..." questions, and that's all they want. Remember, something like 90% of machines are left in default configurations, so make sure those defaults make some sense.
Hooray, they have re-invented Mac OS 7's spatial finder. And guess what: I've been explaining to users how to navigate Mac OS since 1995, and leaving everyting on the desktop only works if a) you don't mind a cluttered desktop (many users do) and b) you have a large enough monitor.
And there are plenty of surprises. (Not sure if Nautilus copies this or not, but this is what OS 7-9 did.) Double-click on the hard drive (or your home folder, or whatever) and put it in list/details view. Double-click on a folder--say, Documents. Go back to the parent window. Click the flippy triangle or plus sign or whatever next to Documents. Watch the "Documents" window close itself. Start explaining "spatial" to the user. Prepare for blank stares.
Face it: computers are complex devices that can perform a multitude of functions. Unless you are going to do only the most basic things (for example, only run a word processor and always save all your docs to the same folder) it will always be complex.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Begging your pardon, but I would respectfully have to disagree. Equating being a grandmother to a low level of technical incompetence has its basis in statistics. Even if one were simply forming hypotheses, one could easilly assume that the older one is, the less technically oriented this person is LIKELY to be. Perhaps not inherently because of age itself, but because of the kind of learning experiences these various groups of people have had.
It's all a matter of making learned guesses and rationalizing ones way through the given information. Not all grandmothers are old. Most seniors have little to no technical training. I can't say for certain whether one becomes harder to train the older one gets.
As for the statement on discrimination: while I certainly disagree with discrimination in any form, I don't see it happening here or in the article. Discrimination is a directed action against representatives of a group. When software developers develop or talk about designing software for grandmothers, they are simply making assumptions based on numbers. If one were to turn down a job applicant for a technical job, for instance, for simply being a grandmother, then THAT is discrimination.
The ease of use of windows is a myth; you have been trained for many years to use and accept windows. Windows is a complex beast that requires frequent attention. There is the requirement for an anti virus due to an inherently insecure default email client. You also have a web browser that allows popup hijacking. How will Grandma deal when the entire screen "corner to corner" is a porno picture? How will your Grandma deal when she gets a fresh install of GATOR?
Now please tell me that knoppix or mandrake move requires the same attention.
Get a free ipod.