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."."

Comments

Question

[mpost4]

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

Re:Question

[Lumpy]

But Grandma might hear of software X and want it.

with most home users this does not happen.

you almost never get the "Ohh shiny new software! Must have it!" Most users here are running whatever they got with the computer and the only software they buy is usually to fill the void that the computer had in it. and yes this is at home. Most linux distros now have no void for most users. it has an office suite, a cgheckbook application, email... everything that the regular user would want and use...

BTW, it is typical for people to buy a whole new computer and get upset that Windows/Office/Works/Quicken has changed and act's different now.. the same argument that I keep hearing about Linux's disadvantage..

So if my grandma can handle
Windows 95 with works 95 and Money 95 she certianly can handle Mandrake 10.0 with it's standard goodies and better card + board games. and no, she will not want to go out and buy some new software, all her needs are always funnled the same way the other family members are... "Lumpy, What should I buy? can you install it? I ran it over with my car, can you fix it? the cat puked in it, can you clean it?... and on and on... and they wonder why I start screaming incoherent things over the phone and have to be dragged to family gatherings....."

Won't grandma be surprised

[eltoyoboyo]

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

Re:FileSystem for Grandma?

[Gunark]

This is one of the oldest and one of the dumbest arguments in UI design.

Think about it... was your TV really designed to work like something else? Pressing buttons to change "channels", turn on "muting" and show "closed captioning" are all pretty abstract and bizarre sounding concepts to someone who has never used a TV. The TV user had to learn all this stuff from scratch, yet few people complain about this.

Computers shouldn't be built to behave like TV's, and TV's shouldn't be built to behave like toasters. The user interface for technology should reflect the best and most efficient way to use that particular piece of technology. If you do it right (and there's no magic bullet, other than KEEP IT SIMPLE), your average grandma will learn it just fine. Give people some credit, they're not quite as stupid as they look :)

Re:Offended: Why?

[MrZaius]

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.