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Advice for Developers: Make Common Usage Easy
Ken Hendrickson writes "Thomas Sowell has some fantastic common-sense advice for software developers from the viewpoint of an ordinary user: Make it easy to do what almost everybody wants to do. I don't believe he uses Free Software; that means that Microsoft is not satisfying their customers, and Free Software can perform better than Microsoft even in the ease of use area!"
<WHINE> All I want to do is forward an email! </WHINE>
Easier said than done. UI design sounds easy but it's not.
As far as Televisions go.. this really isn't the case anymore. With more and more high-end TVs taking over the market and as they continue to do so in the future, thanks in part to HDTV, there will be a brutal setup process just to turn it on and start watching any kind of TV.
The point is that these devices/programs are being made for just about everyone they need to adapt to everyone's skill level. In the case of software development, it doesn't make sense to create several different versions of software with different default options turned on or off. A lot of the times this software has to be scaled to many different types of users on both ends of the spectrum. As a software developer myself, I try to make things as easy as possible that once the program is loaded they can begin their intended task. However, this may not always be possible all of the time.
I do agree with the following though... Stupid bundled software.
Hmmm.
Like clicking on any of the advert around this article!
Omnis amans amens
Duh. Apple has made an entire market out of creating "easy to use" software and hardware. The trick is that it actually has to be designed and re-factored a few times before you have a cohesive product rather than a collection of features.
Case in point: iTunes vs. MusicMatch
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Sad thing that software developers tend to follow the opposite advise: "Make it easy to do what is easy to program". It's the biggest mistake in interface design, bar none.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
* I don't believe he uses Free Software; that means that Microsoft is not satisfying their customers, and Free Software can perform better than Microsoft even in the ease of use area!"
I don't really follow the logic in that statement. Someone help me out, why would Microsoft not satifying their customer base suddenly make free software easy to use? (and how come as a long time open source user I never noticed this?)
Oh this is slashdot, I'm just supposed to assume that Free Software is better in all respects.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
read "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How To Restore The Sanity" by Alan Cooper.
This book clearly and succintly states the difference between how programmers and engineers design (for the edge case), and how people really want things to work (make the common cases easy.) An excellent book, it could be used as a textbook but it's too short. Go read it.
... commercialization and commoditization, strike again.
Mr. Sowell complains that computer programs aren't as easy to use as an automobile. Well, the first person to design the steering wheel probably didn't think to patent it; nor did the first person who put the accelerator pedal to the right of the brake pedal and make them thus and so. The auto UI "jest grewed" and became standard through market forces. It became a commodity such that it can't be patented, yet nobody dares to go against it lest they not sell a car.
On the other hand, the designers of software are careful to put a lock on every little feature that they come up with, ensuring that they wring the maximum value from its implementation. Are we ever going to see a ubiquitous interface? Not while the Patent Office lives. (tongue planted semi-firmly in cheek)
And all the bells and whistles? That's simply more commercialization -- let's get more out of it by climbing into bed with the people whose offers we bundle. And make it glitzy, and make it shiny, and make it loud.
I despair of ever seeing an end to this in commercial software.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
that means that Microsoft is not satisfying their customers, and Free Software can perform better than Microsoft even in the ease of use area!
When "Free Software" has a sizable amount of the desktop market then I think we can say that. Until then, how many years has it been "this year for desktop linux!"???
I found it a good read here
The key difference between a Programmer and a Senior Programmer is that one of them is Mexican.
The FreeTTS guys does a good job in this regard - just a few lines of code gets some words going.
The Army reading list
I do technology for a living, and I STILL pull what's left of my hair out just trying to figure out how to make word stop putting bullets and numbers in front of my "paragraphs" every time I indent (please, no advice -- I haven't used WORD for years -- it's an illustration).
Design your software from use case perspectives to get a clear idea of what the user is actually doing with the system. Seems to me programmer's don't tend to spend a lot of time getting a strong idea of how the client is actually using the product. Focus your energy on the paths that 80% of the product use follows.
I'm not a programmer, but my job required me to learn some php/mysql to re-do a web enabled database because the people working on it couldn't get it done. So, I had a clear cut set of goals laid out. However, halfway through, someone called and needed another feature/field. Then another call. And another.
I ended up with an easy to use web GUI, but I had to fight to get the people to understand what they wanted wasn't parallel with what the database was designed for.
I'm not saying that all programs are great... there are a lot of junk ones out there. But I'm sure some people can agree, with changing goals and deadlines, finished products are often not what they started off being.
What is the saying, "You can have two of three... Cheap, Fast, Good..."?
"I don't believe he uses Free Software; that means that Microsoft is not satisfying their customers, and Free Software can perform better than Microsoft even in the ease of use area!"
Per-lease.
So now we've basically got a world of free software and Microsoft software and that's it? What the hell has this got to do with the freeness or otherwise of the software? Microsoft is not even mentioned in the article!
Convert that can to does, and you've got something. Fortunately Microsoft has been helping by shoveling new features into their Office products for many years. (Have to justify those updates prices somehow.) The only way they could help more would be to add a stupid animated paperclip to explain all those new features and changes to how to do simple things, but that would be stupid.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
'I don't believe he uses Free Software; that means that Microsoft is not satisfying their customers, and Free Software can perform better than Microsoft even in the ease of use area!'
Yet the article is him complaining about a new chess and scrabble game that he bought. No mention of Microsoft - or even Windows.
For all we know - he is running a Mac. Sheesh people - get over yourselves.
And Steve Jobs is clearly the George Eastman he talks about.
I'm not a Mac fanatic (I don't own one, but I do work with them regularly), but it seems to me that this guy is clearly elucidating what is Apple's strategy: make stuff easy to use. For everybody. Without any pain.
I mean, this guy would *love* the free chess app that comes with OS X.
-Shylock
Statistically speaking, there's a 99.998% chance that my IQ is higher than yours. Get over it.
So don't buy a camera with features if you're not going to use the features? His point is just to make a camera with features that I don't have to worry about if I don't want to use them. If that means a lower quality picture fine - it should be at least the same quality as the disposable without the features though. It should not be complex to not use the complex features. That's all.
Sometimes, the cost of developing incredible interfaces is not something a company wants to pay for. I'm a developer for my own company and I find that most of my clients want to get the task done (read "functionality"), with all options available, and would rather inform their staff and/or clients on how to use the software rather than spend double the cost to add ultra friendly interfaces.
That being said, of course I always try to develop the most user-friendly screens as possible, but sometimes business functions are just complex. Period.
I think the point Mr. Sowell was trying to make with the camera analogy was that for 90% of the pictures I take, the "automatic" defaults produce a good serviceable photo. The advanced features (Program and Manual modes) are available and easily accessable when conditions or desire call for them.
I think Mr. Sowell would compare various programs that he complains about to the camera I learned to shoot on - my father's old Nikkromat. Manual everything, with a SLR light meter. Every shot required evaluating the shutter speed, film speed, f-stop, focus, depth of field, flash/no flash, etc. This was not a camera I could hand to a novice and tell them to "just shoot".
Developers and designers have to make reasonable decisions about default settings, and make those settings easy to change.
They also need to resist the urge to add every feature into the product. Does a chess or scrabble game really need to play music?
"Make the easy things easy, and the hard things possible." This applies to a lot more than just Perl scripts.
However, the "easy" thing is not always so cut-and-dried. Maybe he wants to remove red-eye from his digital photographs, and maybe he's using Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop can remove red-eye, but that's not its primary purpose. Removing red-eye in Photoshop is going to be a bit more complicated than a program dedicated to red-eye removal, but that is not a fault in Photoshop. In fact, an experienced Photoshop user could probably remove red-eye faster than an inexperienced user could remove red-eye in a dedicated program.
This is where usability testing is key--why spend time on a feature that only a tiny fraction of your user base is trying to do? Which would you rather see happen to The Gimp: a red-eye wizard, or a Windows version that doesn't spawn a new taskbar item for each new window?
It seems like a "duh" comment to say "make it easy to do common things!" but you have to know what the common things are, first!
Nathan
What about trying to learn from games, and for example; stop using menus? Those small labels on the upper part of the windows, there are a lot, but we seldom use a few of them.
Ergonomic interfaces don't present more than a few options at a time, if my memory es corerct there were studies about using more than 7 options as being confusing. If few options are presented, you don't need menus.
What's in a sig?
Since it seems he's used this camera analogy throughout the article I'll comment on this little blurb. I'm not so sure it's a very good analogy to use either. The fact is that if you want better pictures, you NEED to go through all of those "useless" features and change them. All of those values will change depending on the conditions, the lighting, and the activity your photographing. If there are those people that DONT care about those features, get the one-use ones. Hell, they even have digital one-time use camera now.
See, this is where you missed his point.
I have a fancy camera (analog), and a less fancy digital. With the fancy analog camera, if I want to take a family photo, I press the button. At most, I need to hit the clearly marked flash button to turn it on. Of course, if I'm feeling artistic, I may want to adjust the exposure, shutter speed, etc., and those features are all there. However, to simply to the most common operation, take a picture, I don't need to do anything.
Your attitude is elitist, "if you don't want the fancy features, get a disposable camera." Beyond the fact that disposables get expensive real fast, what if I want to have a single camera and be able to take real photos AND snapshots?
The point of the article is that the simple should be simple. If I want to take a picture, I press a button. When I install a dictionary program, instead of being interviewed by the program, let me quickly look up words.
The most common use for the references is a lookup mode, and the application vendor could certainly include a dictionary application AND a multi-media application.
I have an HDTV. Yes the DirecTV box required some settings (which are supposed to be done by the installer)... it asked for my zipcode for the guide. HOWEVER, if I just wanted to watch TV, I could have plugged in the box, turned on the TV, and let it auto-scan the antenna (this should happen on first use, instead of via menu, but it wasn't too bad).
I can adapt the colors, I can go into the service menu and tweak further, etc., for a reasonable picture I needed to calibrate the convergence, etc. However, if I just bought the TV and the HDTV box, on Sunday and set them up 15 minutes before kick-off, I could have been watching the game without problem.
The SIMPLE operation: watch a football game, is easy (could be easier, but pretty easy).
The COMLICATED operation: calibrate colors to the Avia disc, adjust convergence, etc., was complicated.
With MOST computer software, it wants me to go through a process to use the application. That is unacceptable.
Most SOFTWARE SHOULD run off the CD, or like MOST Mac software and be a draggable install (drag into Applications). Installers are bad (make them for unusual use), better search order for applications to it can be one Folder/Bundle is better.
If you have features that require libraries to be installed at boot-time, make them optional. If the library isn't there, no feature unless you run the installer.
Wouldn't it be great if simply RUNNING a computer program/game was as easy as playing a PS2/XBox/Gamecube game?
Sure the powerful functionality can be there for power users, but most people should be able to use your program without help. That sadly isn't the case.
This is hardly news. It's been said many times before, and will probably be said many time again.
A lot of his rant has to do with all the unnecessary glitz and flash that has been added to what used to be simple software. One of the problems with technology today is that it has become too easy to add stupid unrelated glitz to basic information. This simply obscures the information.
For example, many (most probably) DVDs have these complete stupid animations that have to play when moving from one menu to another. I recently rented a movie (can't remember which) where you had to sit through 15 seconds of animation before the Special Features menu was displayed. It wasn't impressive, it was just annoying.
There is more and more of this every day. It seems that media and product producers do not have any really new features to add to new releases, so they just add some unnecessary glitz and animations and sell it as a new version.
The producers of Scrabble should take a hint. The Scrabble board game hasn't changed in 50 years, and it's still popular. Some things just don't need new features.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
I've seen articles like this for years and it seems to always take issue with the things the writer doesn't know how to do compared with the things they do and seem intuitive to them.
I would pick holes in just about all his arguments - he seems to ignore the initial training and years of condition on how a car works. The same with a TV set. I'm sure I could find somebody that has horror stories trying to figure them out for the first time and could write an article on how counter-intuitive these items are (like, why do you need a key for a car ignition when you've unlocked the door?).
I've seen many articles like this on the VCR, not to mention ones complaining about more sophisticated cars, kitchen appliances, telephones, heating/air-conditioning systems, all of them wanting the systems to be simpler (and most, like this one, wanting to return to simpler times).
One of the things that infuriates me the most about this article is that the writer doesn't try to do anything himself; his "computer guru" doesn't seem bright enough to be able to load software without getting his mom angry because he is late for dinner.
In any case, if he really wants to play scrabble simply, why doesn't he drop twenty bucks (probably less than he paid for the CD) and buy a hand held scrabble game?
Sorry for the Rant - I would be a lot kinder if the writer had tried to load an application, got a GPF and ended up in phone support hell between the ISV and Microsoft with each blaming each other and the theme of the article is that he just wanted it to work.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
This is exactly the attitude that perpetuates (and widens) the gap between the geek community and their "clientelle". There are many highly intelligent people out there who don't know "our" language, and don't care to -- they just want to do work that was promised to be easier and faster by using a computer -- a promise rarely delivered.
It sounds to me like what Thomas Sowell really needs to do is learn how to use the VOL and MUTE buttons on his laptop. If he's unlucky, it requires some FN-key combination.
If he's "unlucky"?!? Then that would be about 90% of the experience -- My experience has been that I must figure out for each machine what it takes to turn down the volume or mute the sound. It's seemingly different (and obtuse) on each machine. And, you've only addressed ONE of his problems/complaints. He isn't asking how to turn down the volume on his computer -- he's pointing out how "noisy" the world of computer software is; noisy in the sense of interference.
I used to blame the idiocy of the users, their laziness and reluctance to learn until I bought a computer for my parents. One is a concert violinist, the other is a Doctor -- both IMHO of genius caliber intelligence (familial bias of course). It has been an ongoing struggle to introduce them to the metaphors I use daily -- our world of techdom is just that. OUR world... We need to overcome our hubris and live the experience through users' eyes.
This is serious, people. I do not know of any other product where the designers/developers are so far removed from the end user. Something that makes perfect sense to a highly trained, technically capable person will make absolutely no sense to a person who has trouble remembering 2 passwords. Really.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
With cars, the situation is different. First, as you mention, the UI for automobiles has stabilized long ago. The last significant modification was the automatic transmission. Before that, the last mass-produced car with a different UI was the Ford model T, which had a separate throtle pedal for reverse. Besides, cars today are compared for marketing purposes with features like style, power and speed, not the raw number of options, like software is.
This book was written in the 80's but the concepts are timeless. It's not software specific but it is an excellent primer for designers and engineers of all types.
The Design of Everyday thingsEverybody is talking about how difficult it is to do UI. Yup, it sure is. Just ask the guys who did the classic industrial designs- the Dreyfus telephones, etc etc. Lots of examples in addition to the Kodak Brownie.
:-)
The best designs become classics, and really change the way we work and live. And there really aren't all that many classics, vastly fewer than the number of designs that try and fail.
So why aren't there more really classic software designs? Part of it is that all of us programmers have drunk the koolaid about uniform interface designs. They simplify learning by creating references to things previously learned in other contexts. But a real "classic design" is easy to learn because it's *internally* coherent- its reference points are meaningful in terms of its own functionality. If there is complexity, it maps directly to the problem domain and not to the UI design. That makes it far easier to deal with, because it "just makes sense." The iPod is a very interesting recent example, but I can't think of something analogous in the realm of pure software.
Maybe if we break out of the box on UI design, then we might be able to stop complaining about how stupid our users are. After all someone who uses something I wrote is supposed to be *smart* not stupid
As an ideal, software should make simple things simple, and complex things possible. Both of these require talent, but the former is certainly the less glorious and more thankless. If you are highly skilled, and design your software meticulously with usability in mind, you can make a software task appear so simple that users wonder why it took you so long to write.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
In terms of UI and usabilty there are alot better ones out there.
>Too many other computerized products and computer programs, however, force you to get bogged down in so many options, functions, and modes that you may just give up before finding the simple thing you want to do.
In a windowed program, there are menus. Don't want the options, don't go hunting for it.
>Today, it takes a CD to hold all the bells and whistles that have been added
No the reason why they use CD is not because its complicated, its because it cheap to mass produce. A program is > 2 megs and If you are awake in the middle of the night in a hotel room and your spouse is asleep, you would never dare to turn on the new Scrabble game.
Its called a volume control. Either built in, on the OS level or the physical speakers has them. What would the user want?
>Since my old computer chess game will not work on the new computers, I had to get a new chess game
But when you bought the old chess game it didn't specify it would work on the new OS? And this is the programmers fault for not making things compatible with technology 10 years in the future?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
This is something I think FireFox has gotten very right. Don't want to mess around with settings? Great. It works right out of the box.
I've installed FireFox for about a dozen people now. So far only two have even bothered to open the Options dialog. They don't care how the options are set, as long as they can browse. The two who have opened the Options dialog think the customizability is great but those two are not the majority of users.
My username does not make me Apathetic. It's irony, get it?
Why must people insist that it's just as easy to make a graphical interface as intuitive as a hardware interface?
Let's take a step back here. What's the difference between a computer and a hammer (from an interface perspective)?
They're both tools, used by people, to accomplish various tasks. Why can't a computer be as easy to use as a hammer (or any other elegant physical tool)?
Because we can't touch them.
It's that simple. In the hardware world we have hammers, to cars, to ipods, to... let your imagination go wild. It's entirely easier to make a hardware interface user friendly because a hardware interface designer can use their own intuition, and the intuition of others to make it easy.
Anyone ever ask themselves why hammers have a handle and a head? Anyone ever ask themselves why a walkman's volume is controlled by a dial? Do you commonly wonder why turning the steering wheel on your car turns your car?
Physical things can be made an order of magnitude easier than programs merely because they are physical things. The human mind easily pierces most facets of a physical object within seconds of its observation. The option to handle it makes it even easier.
Computers have a very serious handicap. We can't interact directly with our computer! Under most circumstances we have a keyboard and monitor as standard input and output. So we have our hardware interface. But this interface doesn't directly control the computer. We have to use this hardware interface to work with a software interface.
It's this simple little factor that trips people up: Interfacing with an interface.
To get a real life analogy of operating a program, use a hammer (and only a hammer, no hands) to operate your vehicle. No hands, no feet, use the hammer to accelerate and steer. Hell, I'll make it easy, you can use a hammer in each hand.
This being said, we've still got SO MUCH left to do in the graphical interface world. There's so much experimenting left to do, so many advances we've yet to make. Expecting the relatively young computer industry to produce interfaces that are as easy as interfaces that have been around since the stone-age is insane!
In defense of PC, let me point out that he trying to compare machines with a specific purpose to those with a general purpose and is upset that the level of complexity is higher. With all due respect, No Shit Sherlock! Even something as "advanced" as a digital camera has, in essence, one goal in life: to take photos. Toasters, televisions, even cars are designed for very specific tasks -- any extra features are an added "complexity".
Computers and Operating Systems have no such luck. They must act as their own human-machine interpreters to an infinite number of possibile inputs and commands. Some of these commands are simple and can be optimized for -- eg, run program. Most, however, have their own set of additional complexities -- functions such as printing a document, manipulating data, and searching for files all have so many possible outcomes that more specific instructions than one-button "Do This" interfaces are required.
Not to mention that every user will have their own opinion about how their interface should optimized. The "complex" interface is a good thing because it gives the users complete freedom over their interactions with the system.
But what about users who don't want that freedom? They want machines with a big "Do this" button -- cameras have one, cars have one, toasters have one. Computers, by their very nature, can *not* have one -- the set of all correct answers to "Do this" is infinite. How? Where?
The bottom line is that the computer cannot read your mind. It cannot perfectly and accurately translate simplistic commands into complex functions. The best it can do is try to predict what you mean and give feeble human-to-machine translation function to the rest.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
You don't get it do you. Ranting without stopping to understand the problem just gives the world more poorly thought out software. Just because you have expertise in computers or some other area does not mean everyone does.
For instance, in MSWord-97, I type file/new and it asks me if I want a blank document or blank template. Duh!!
Try to load your old Netscape or Mozilla mail files to your new computer so you can continue seamlessly. Same for the bookmarks.
Think ahead, not behind. Programs do not need bells and whistles to be good, but they do need to do the things people need done.
.. and it absolutely was easy to do the most important simple thing:
I cut immediately start typing text.
And I can do the most important tasks by pressing easy to find buttons. From my experiences with beginners: they all could that within 1 minute. Learning how to move around with the mouse usually took more time.
Now try explaing a novice how to use LaTeX.
PS: "that means that Microsoft is not satisfying their customers," - The Scrabble mentioned was probably not produced by Microsoft!
PPS: I would never use anything but LaTeX for a text with more than one formula.
Why does Excel have such easy to use list-making functionality when it is supposed to be a spreadsheet? Microsoft did a lot of user testing and found that an awful lot of customers just used it to make lists. So they made it really easy to do so. That's just one example.
In short, the view that you should make the common tasks easy is completely on target. The idea that Microsoft is unaware of this and doesn't follow these ideas themselves is completely wrong and has no basis in reality.
Wow! That makes my day. An article by Thomas Sowell featured on slashdot! He's a great writer, and he happens to be a conservative black too. Please read some of his other articles too while you're at it.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News