the idea that a content producer is going to be, or even should be, more interested in maximizing overall public utility than their own is an awful big assumption.
Why not? Maximizing public utility is the primary reason for the adoption of capitalism in the first place. In markets where capitalism is unable to maximize public utility, then surely whatever economic system can maximize public utility is at least as valid. After all, it is society that decides what system is used. I society had not agreed upon capitalism as for physical goods, then there would be no such thing as private property.
I would love to build a car once and then get paid each time the owner takes a drive, but society has deemed that I should not be so lucky. I believe it inevitable that society will decide the same thing about all digital information - music, paintings, video, software, whatever. Teenagers are growing up with the idea that music and video is free to download off the internet, its only a matter of time until they become enough of a market and/or political force that change will be forced on the entertainment industry.
That is the stick.
Also, if an artist gives yesterday away for free(you just have to copy it!), what impact does that have on the value of his today and tomorrow?
And this is the carrot.
I believe that an artist who casts the fruit of his labors on the sea will be rewarded many times over. At least as long as those fruits don't suck.
By making his creations freely available to all, he maximizes his exposure. Or in other words - its all free advertising for his next project. For example, a musician releases a song to the public domain - it is now (legally) available to orders of magnitude more people that it would be otherwise. They are now all potential customers for his next song. If even a small fraction of those people like it enough to pay for the labor, materials and whatever profit margin the market will tolerate, he can produce the new song, get paid and give that one away too.
If his music becomes really popular, it is easy to imagine a million people willing to pony up something in the ballpark of 25 cents each to pay the musician to release each new song. For mega-popular artists, you might see the paying audience in the 10s of millions. Same things applies to tv and movies - particularly tv shows and movie sequels where an audience gets "hooked" on the storyline and can't wait for the next episode.
Another thing to consider is that when the audience funds the production, there is close to zero risk involved for the artist. He no longer needs a money-bags studio to act as a "venture capitalist" for the production - the audience has assumed the risk that the end results will suck. But one sucky song or movie won't hurt the audience, they are only in for a buck or two at most - less personal risk than going to a traditionally-funded movie, paying for a a couple of $10+ tickets plus gas, popcorn, etc and then finding out the movie sucked. That's a plus for the artist - he's got the freedom to experiment and a plus for the audience, each of which is a lot better off if the end result sucks than if it sucked under the prior model of "intellectual property."
The free software analogy doesn't hold up particularly well, companies that invest in open source/free software very much invest in commodity-like software where there is little room for "value add" in the basic product. I.e, apache, linux, open office. It isn't an absolute rule, but a huge majority of the cash follows the pattern.
If you are saying that entertainment is not a commodity and thus different from software - then I have to disagree. All of the entertainment companies treat their product like a commodity - they don't care a bit about depth or meaning or anything like that, just whatever sells. This shows in their actions too - in a commodity market, the only way to differentiate is via externals, like advertising and if there is one thing that the RIAA and MPAA members do to the extreme, it is advertise.
Where is the evidence that the 'entrenched mindset' is wrong? Why shouldn't people have the ability to charge others for stuff they produce, ease of copying aside?
If they sell a product, they have the freedom to charge whatever they want for their product and you as a customer have the right NOT to buy their product. What part of this is confusing? Do you need statistics for this?
Your argument, whether you realize it or not, is based on the concept that private ownership is the best (or perhaps the least worst) economic system to maximimze the utilitization of resources. This theory is also known as capitalism.
However, there is one key requirement of this theory that is missing in this context - that is that the resources must be rivalrous. Capitalism appears to works for rivalrous resources, but it is well understood by economists that private ownership of non-rivalrous resources does not maximize utilization.
DRM is an attempt to make "content" rivalrous for the consumer, while maintaining its non-rivalrous nature for the owner. However, restricted or not, the content is still non-rivalrous and thus private ownership will not produce anything like optimal utilization.
The answer lies elsewhere, and in my opinion it isn't too hard to find, although implementing it given the current entrenched system isn't anywhere as simple. The key thing about "content" is that while the end result is non-rivalrous, the production of said content is still rivalrous. So basic economic theory suggests that private ownership of the means of production is a good way to maximize utilization.
In other words, artists need to sell their skills in creating content, but not sell the content itself. Similar to the way a lot of free software is developed - software engineers work on contract for custom development and/or they work as hourly employees of companies like Redhat, HP, IBM, Novell, etc producing Free software that benefits their employer. The hard part is to aggregate the purchasing power of consumers so that they can pay for an artist's work (and materials, and whatever profit margin the market will bear) up front. But that's only hard because our society is still stuck, some would say held back, in a market based on charging for distribution to recoup investments in production. There are fledgling/experimental markets designed around paying for the creation of content, with any luck a few good ones will gain a toehold and start to grow.
As an embedded systems engineer, I've created systems using open source software, GPL and others. You could go to our company's website and download the source to all those that we are required to distribute. But these won't do you any good. The system cryptographically authenticates all binaries from the bootloader on. Even if you changed our kernel, improved our software, you'll never be able to use them on the hardware you bought from us
And while technically allowed under GPLv2 (but not under the draft GPLv3), don't you feel dirty for doing that kind of work? Last I heard, embedded systems was the hottest job market for software developers - you could probably move on to a less shady employer without much hassle.
If the FSF had a workable alternative to DRM, then they should put it forth and let it compete for our hearts and minds and dollars.
They do. Its called Freedom. You know - free as in liberty, not free as in beer. What works for software can work for art too, they are effectively the same thing after all.
The big difference is that when Stallman got started on Free software, non-Free software was only a few years old and had only just gained an advantage over Free software.
Entertainment has been technically non-Free for a couple of centuries. Its a much bigger entrenched mindset that must be overcome, and unlike the software microcosm, those who benefit from the current non-Free environment have so much control over the public discourse that its almost impossible for a dissenting opinion like the FSF's to be widely heard, much less considered more than "fringe."
or instance it has been noted that people value items more when they own them
Its not when they own them, it is when they have paid for them - and the more dearly they paid, the more they value them - and payment not need be in the form of currency either. That's why so many frat boys are fanatical about their fraternity - they paid dearly in hazing rituals in order to attain membership - thus they attribute a higher than realistic value to membership.
Since, 30K songs, would be $30,000 at itunes-level pricing and potentially even more at retail-CD pricing, chances are someone with that many songs did not actually pay for them - either via raising the old skull & crossbones or using one of those all-you-can-eat music services. If they could afford full pricing, then they are probably so rich that the price is immaterial to them anyway.
So, unless they are insane, chances are they 'paid' so little for all those songs that they don't really care about any of them that much. Which is about the same conclusion you reached, but I felt like babbling on about the paid-vs-own thing because I think it is an interesting facet to human psychology.
Harrison Ford, however, have stated that Deckard is human.
Of course he would say he was human. If the characer never knew that he was a replicant, why tell the actor? It makes the performance more authentic if the actor doesn't know either.
You're the one that keeps trying to dodge by making it about implementation. You're, in fact, the one that brought the whole trashcan thing into it as an example.
As an example of a concept, not of an implementation.
You are the one who thinks that your own personal experience is indicative of concept and not implementation. You go on and on and on, and still further on making up examples of bad interfaces -- your entire "con man" example is just you choosing a bad implementation and saying that it is representative of the concept. In doing so you unknowingly illustrate my point -- it is easy to make a piss-poor user interface - you just did it yourself. It is hard to make a good one - you certainly can't just whip one up on the spur of the moment.
By your standards, if I press delete because I want it to run make me two scrambled eggs with a side of bacon and a cup of coffee, then it's broken, and you need to be paid to fix it.
No - those "standards" are your bizzare attempt to twist my point into something you can yell and scream about. Its easy to knock down strawmen. But its just mental masturbation on your part, so keep it to yourself.
One principle of good UI design is that if a user wants to do a certain task, it must be easy for him to figure out how to do the task - and that in proceeding with each step of the task, the computer gives him just enough feedback so that he knows that each step has been undertaken succesfully. If the user makes an error and fails to get his task done, then the problem lies with the UI design for not making the process clear enough.
It does not mean interpreting undirected keystrokes for some sort of direction which is the kind of ridiculous premise you have filled your examples with.
And puh-leaze, before you even start, don't bother telling me how such and such trashcan does not follow that principle. I can point at any car with a flat tire and say "it doesn't work" - but that doesn't mean cars in general are useless.
Yes, you think 'mere users' like me are absolute imbeciles, unable to meaningfully inform you of our needs, and certainly unable to realise that pushing the key marked 'delete' might actually result in something being deleted. You can deny it all you want, but you can't reconcile that denial with your initial expression of design philosophy in any credible way.
What initial expression? That there is no such thing as human error? So, saying that a programmer's failure to fully anticipate how the user will interact with the system means the user is an imbecile? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
My aging father who's afraid of changing anything on his computer lest he break something can see it's moronic, and he does get frustrated with it. The computer is backtalking him! The first time he saw that message, he thought he must have inadvertantly tried to delete a critical system file or something. I've had secretaries that only use the computer for email and word processing ask 'why does this thing think I'm an idiot? I mean, I know I'm not the smartest and all with these computers and stuff, but I think I know what 'delete' means.'
You keep going on and on and on about specific implementations. There could hardly be better proof that you are just lost in the forest. But, why don't you give me another example of how a specific trashcan implementation has a usuability problem and maybe that will convince me. I mean, its worked so well the first 10 million times you did it! Lol!
You sound like Bill Clinton, or half of the guys on my high school debate team... so proud of your ability to twist words and change subjects, and then you wonder why no one wants to listen to you anymore.
Pot kettle bang.
I initially replied to your post that claimed that "there is no such thing as "human error"" and went on to expound how any time the computer user appears to have made an error, the error was actually on the part of the programmer that failed to make the computer do what the user actually wanted, rather than what they commanded.
You truly can't see the forest, can you? No wonder you keep referencing the chewbacca defense - you don't get it, so you think there is nothing there. Like A. Square visiting Pointland, you can't be rescued from your all-knowing, self-satisfcation.
Projecting personal failings of all sorts on me for daring to disagree with you leads me to suspect some personal failings of your own. Whatever your motivation, designing software with the assumption that your users are all imbeciles is not only insulting and arrogant, it results in interfaces only imbeciles would want to use.
You are the one projecting personal failings. I have never once advocated designing software for imbeciles. You've translated your personal frustrations with trashcan implementations into a twisted belief that, "intuitiveness is a myth" and that accounting for human psychology - not imbecile psychology - is therefore worthless. Fortunately for my bank account, you're wrong - as my clients all heartily disagree with your viewpoint.
This distinction between implementation and concept is, at best, disingenuous. Some implementations are worse than others, yes (the Mac is only mildly annoying compared to the excruciating and insulting Windows version) but so what? They all suck.
Sadly for you, simply disagreeing does not prove anything, and that's all you have done since your initial post. Fundamentally it boils down to what the other respondent to your initial post spelled out - you want expert level behaviour out of the interface by default and having failed to figure out how to get that expert level behaviour, you blame the interface instead of the nut behind the wheel. If you are intent on making the computer get out of the way and do what you want with no failsafes, then you need to make the effort to learn how to turn off the failsafes.
I'm not criticising the implementation, I'm criticising the entire concept.
Yeah, that's why your initial response contained a long paragraph bitching, in excruciating detail, about the number of windows and mouse clicks you had to deal with on a macintosh versus a ms-windows computer in order to delete a file. Clearly that was a criticism of concept and not implementation.
If the user tells the computer to delete the file, the computer should DELETE THE FILE. Not move it to a 'trashcan' instead.
Pardon me for attributing to you the modicum of intelligence to understand that a user interface with a default behaviour making the most common errors the most expensive to recover from is the absolute poorest possible design.
If I had known that you were yet another programmer who is pathalogically incapable of wrapping his head around the fact that the vast majority of users are not, and have no wish to become, expert users of arcane and unforgiving interfaces, I would have never bothered responding.
Furthermore, the trashcan is a great example of an out of place metaphor. The computer 'trashcan' doesn't have enough in common with the real life trashcan to make the metaphor helpful or obvious. It's an ugly, annoying, kludge.
Ah, for the first time, an actual criticism of the concept and not a specific implementation. Too bad for you that I've already debunked this specific criticism twice now. You know, back when I said that the vast majority of the computer using population already has plenty of exposure to the metaphor so it's connection to the physical world is no longer relevant. Intuitiveness is about relating to the user's personal experience, not about requiring real-world and digital interfaces to be identical.
Seriously, how massive a fit of laughter did hearing of Hasselhoff called a 'mega-star' send you into?
Not much, since anyone who has watched much saturday night live knows that Hasselhoff is a mega-star in germany, and jokes about it grew stale years ago.
I mention that the trashcan is a widespread, well-known interface for handling the recovery of deleted files.
You respond that it is a terrible interface because you personally find some of the more common implementations to be clumsy.
I respond that critques of specific implementations (the trees) do not invalidate the fact that the metaphor of the trashcan is now a widely-known and understood interface for the recovery of deleted files (the forest).
You respond that you understand the metaphor of the trashcan (something I never disputed) and then reiterate that some implementations suck.
I doubt anybody would bother trying to get a refund, becuase it would be more trouble than it's worth. Even if there was a number to contact, chances are you'll get a recorded message saying "Life is hard, cry me a river" - if you get through at all.
Its illegal in the usa not to provide a way to receive refunds for problems with unattended vending machines. Any vending machine that does not prominetly display contact information for such refunds is in violation of their vending license.
You know, there's something fundamentally wrong with your thinking here....
When I push the delete button I want the damn thing deleted. I don't want to have to waste time dealing with a backtalking computer.
Forest and trees dude.
Different implementations of trashcans differ in their interfaces - but anyone who has used a computer in the last 10 years understands the basic metaphor - that recently deleted files can usually be undeleted by poking around in the desktop trashcan - you don't need specialist tools in order to undelete files like you once did.
An alphanumeric pad could well cost more, since you'd presumably need all the numbers plus a few of the letters. Plus they maybe don't make them in such quantities.
It is important to consider all the costs associated with user-interface design decisions. Focusing on materials costs and ignoring operating costs is not a good idea. While an alpha-num keybad may cost more than a numeric-only keypad, any such savings will probably be quickly overtaken by the cost of handling refund requests for miskeyed purchases.
You can have 70 popups that ask if you're really sure you want to do something. Someone out there will still be stupid enough to click yes 70 times- thats human error.
No, that's bad design - exactly the kind of "programmer who doesn't understand the users" mentality that plagues software design today. If 1 popup doesn't correct the problem, what sane person would expect 69 more to improve the situation? All that does is train the user to click "OK" 70 times without reading the popups - the software equivalent of the "little boy who cried wolf."
Instead of "70 popups" a better design is to provide some sort of "undo" functionality.
DWIM is an absolutely fucktarded idea.
If your definition of DWIM is "guess what I mean" then of course it is a fucktard idea. But that is not what DWIM is. DWIM is about enabling the user to tell the system what he wants it to do in a fashion that is intuitive to the user - even if it is a real pain in the ass for the programmer to implement.
As for your trash can metaphor- there's two issues with it. FIrst off, users don't understand it. You wouldn't believe how many people don't know how to clean their trashcan and end up taking it in for repairs when the hard drive fails. If the trashcan auto-deletes, they get confused when files they expected to be in there aren't. Its not a cureall.
While there are undoubtedly a large number of people who don't understand the trashcan metaphor, there are orders of magnitude more who do. Variants are in MS Windows and in MacOS, that covers about 95% of the computer using public - probably close to a billion people. We don't have even 1% of them experiencing the problems you describe. Regardless, a trashcan that provides an indication as to how long each deleted file has before it becomes permanently deleted solves the problem in both cases.
Secondly- space costs. Especially on a remote server. Why should Cingular pay for someone else's mistakes? There's nothing in it for them, and it would make their server software more complex and error prone. It seems a lose/lose to them from here.
Disk space is cheap. People are not. The cost of each service call that tells a person no, they can not undelete a voicemail could easilt pay for the space for 1000 and probably closer to 10,000 people's deleted messages for a week.
Back when computers were expensive and people were cheap, arcane specialist interfaces made sense, it was cheaper to train people than to pay for the computing resources to make intuitive interfaces. That has not been the case for at least a decade now.
Needless to say, this incident was entirely my fault.
As one of apparently very few programmers with an active interest in human interface design, I beg to differ. I believe that there is no such thing as "human error" when dealing with a computing device. You did not intend to permanently delete that voicemail message, but the system did it anyway.
To me, that indicates a failure in the design of the user interface, not a failure on your part. Ultimately, computers should be DWIM - do what I mean - but failing that, interfaces should not impose irrevocable consquences on the user unless there is just absolutely no other way to do it.
In the case of accidental deletions, we've already come up with a workable metaphor - the trash can, from which the deletion can be retrieved until the trash is either manually "emptied" or overflows and you get a FIFO behaviour on older deletions becoming permanent.
Ain't no reason a voice-mail system can't have a similar interface. Chances are, the UI designers could prevent most such accidental deletions up front at their level, but that they have not done a very good job with that either.
Slashdot Mirror
the idea that a content producer is going to be, or even should be, more interested in maximizing overall public utility than their own is an awful big assumption.
Why not? Maximizing public utility is the primary reason for the adoption of capitalism in the first place. In markets where capitalism is unable to maximize public utility, then surely whatever economic system can maximize public utility is at least as valid. After all, it is society that decides what system is used. I society had not agreed upon capitalism as for physical goods, then there would be no such thing as private property.
I would love to build a car once and then get paid each time the owner takes a drive, but society has deemed that I should not be so lucky. I believe it inevitable that society will decide the same thing about all digital information - music, paintings, video, software, whatever. Teenagers are growing up with the idea that music and video is free to download off the internet, its only a matter of time until they become enough of a market and/or political force that change will be forced on the entertainment industry.
That is the stick.
Also, if an artist gives yesterday away for free(you just have to copy it!), what impact does that have on the value of his today and tomorrow?
And this is the carrot.
I believe that an artist who casts the fruit of his labors on the sea will be rewarded many times over. At least as long as those fruits don't suck.
By making his creations freely available to all, he maximizes his exposure. Or in other words - its all free advertising for his next project. For example, a musician releases a song to the public domain - it is now (legally) available to orders of magnitude more people that it would be otherwise. They are now all potential customers for his next song. If even a small fraction of those people like it enough to pay for the labor, materials and whatever profit margin the market will tolerate, he can produce the new song, get paid and give that one away too.
If his music becomes really popular, it is easy to imagine a million people willing to pony up something in the ballpark of 25 cents each to pay the musician to release each new song. For mega-popular artists, you might see the paying audience in the 10s of millions. Same things applies to tv and movies - particularly tv shows and movie sequels where an audience gets "hooked" on the storyline and can't wait for the next episode.
Another thing to consider is that when the audience funds the production, there is close to zero risk involved for the artist. He no longer needs a money-bags studio to act as a "venture capitalist" for the production - the audience has assumed the risk that the end results will suck. But one sucky song or movie won't hurt the audience, they are only in for a buck or two at most - less personal risk than going to a traditionally-funded movie, paying for a a couple of $10+ tickets plus gas, popcorn, etc and then finding out the movie sucked. That's a plus for the artist - he's got the freedom to experiment and a plus for the audience, each of which is a lot better off if the end result sucks than if it sucked under the prior model of "intellectual property."
The free software analogy doesn't hold up particularly well, companies that invest in open source/free software very much invest in commodity-like software where there is little room for "value add" in the basic product. I.e, apache, linux, open office. It isn't an absolute rule, but a huge majority of the cash follows the pattern.
If you are saying that entertainment is not a commodity and thus different from software - then I have to disagree. All of the entertainment companies treat their product like a commodity - they don't care a bit about depth or meaning or anything like that, just whatever sells. This shows in their actions too - in a commodity market, the only way to differentiate is via externals, like advertising and if there is one thing that the RIAA and MPAA members do to the extreme, it is advertise.
He got pretty big in Europe I guess, but that hardly makes him a megastar in the states
Please try to follow along. I never claimed any such thing. From my original post:
Hasselhoff is a mega-star in germany
Where is the evidence that the 'entrenched mindset' is wrong? Why shouldn't people have the ability to charge others for stuff they produce, ease of copying aside?
Ask any economist.
If they sell a product, they have the freedom to charge whatever they want for their product and you as a customer have the right NOT to buy their product. What part of this is confusing? Do you need statistics for this?
Your argument, whether you realize it or not, is based on the concept that private ownership is the best (or perhaps the least worst) economic system to maximimze the utilitization of resources. This theory is also known as capitalism.
However, there is one key requirement of this theory that is missing in this context - that is that the resources must be rivalrous. Capitalism appears to works for rivalrous resources, but it is well understood by economists that private ownership of non-rivalrous resources does not maximize utilization.
DRM is an attempt to make "content" rivalrous for the consumer, while maintaining its non-rivalrous nature for the owner. However, restricted or not, the content is still non-rivalrous and thus private ownership will not produce anything like optimal utilization.
The answer lies elsewhere, and in my opinion it isn't too hard to find, although implementing it given the current entrenched system isn't anywhere as simple. The key thing about "content" is that while the end result is non-rivalrous, the production of said content is still rivalrous. So basic economic theory suggests that private ownership of the means of production is a good way to maximize utilization.
In other words, artists need to sell their skills in creating content, but not sell the content itself. Similar to the way a lot of free software is developed - software engineers work on contract for custom development and/or they work as hourly employees of companies like Redhat, HP, IBM, Novell, etc producing Free software that benefits their employer. The hard part is to aggregate the purchasing power of consumers so that they can pay for an artist's work (and materials, and whatever profit margin the market will bear) up front. But that's only hard because our society is still stuck, some would say held back, in a market based on charging for distribution to recoup investments in production. There are fledgling/experimental markets designed around paying for the creation of content, with any luck a few good ones will gain a toehold and start to grow.
As an embedded systems engineer, I've created systems using open source software, GPL and others. You could go to our company's website and download the source to all those that we are required to distribute. But these won't do you any good. The system cryptographically authenticates all binaries from the bootloader on. Even if you changed our kernel, improved our software, you'll never be able to use them on the hardware you bought from us
And while technically allowed under GPLv2 (but not under the draft GPLv3), don't you feel dirty for doing that kind of work? Last I heard, embedded systems was the hottest job market for software developers - you could probably move on to a less shady employer without much hassle.
If the FSF had a workable alternative to DRM, then they should put it forth and let it compete for our hearts and minds and dollars.
They do. Its called Freedom. You know - free as in liberty, not free as in beer. What works for software can work for art too, they are effectively the same thing after all.
The big difference is that when Stallman got started on Free software, non-Free software was only a few years old and had only just gained an advantage over Free software.
Entertainment has been technically non-Free for a couple of centuries. Its a much bigger entrenched mindset that must be overcome, and unlike the software microcosm, those who benefit from the current non-Free environment have so much control over the public discourse that its almost impossible for a dissenting opinion like the FSF's to be widely heard, much less considered more than "fringe."
Its illegal in the usa ... to know that other countries exist, it would seem. Fucktard.
Lol! Not many vending machines in Cameroon you know.
or instance it has been noted that people value items more when they own them
Its not when they own them, it is when they have paid for them - and the more dearly they paid, the more they value them - and payment not need be in the form of currency either. That's why so many frat boys are fanatical about their fraternity - they paid dearly in hazing rituals in order to attain membership - thus they attribute a higher than realistic value to membership.
Since, 30K songs, would be $30,000 at itunes-level pricing and potentially even more at retail-CD pricing, chances are someone with that many songs did not actually pay for them - either via raising the old skull & crossbones or using one of those all-you-can-eat music services. If they could afford full pricing, then they are probably so rich that the price is immaterial to them anyway.
So, unless they are insane, chances are they 'paid' so little for all those songs that they don't really care about any of them that much. Which is about the same conclusion you reached, but I felt like babbling on about the paid-vs-own thing because I think it is an interesting facet to human psychology.
Harrison Ford, however, have stated that Deckard is human.
Of course he would say he was human. If the characer never knew that he was a replicant, why tell the actor? It makes the performance more authentic if the actor doesn't know either.
You're the one that keeps trying to dodge by making it about implementation. You're, in fact, the one that brought the whole trashcan thing into it as an example.
As an example of a concept, not of an implementation.
You are the one who thinks that your own personal experience is indicative of concept and not implementation. You go on and on and on, and still further on making up examples of bad interfaces -- your entire "con man" example is just you choosing a bad implementation and saying that it is representative of the concept. In doing so you unknowingly illustrate my point -- it is easy to make a piss-poor user interface - you just did it yourself. It is hard to make a good one - you certainly can't just whip one up on the spur of the moment.
By your standards, if I press delete because I want it to run make me two scrambled eggs with a side of bacon and a cup of coffee, then it's broken, and you need to be paid to fix it.
No - those "standards" are your bizzare attempt to twist my point into something you can yell and scream about. Its easy to knock down strawmen. But its just mental masturbation on your part, so keep it to yourself.
One principle of good UI design is that if a user wants to do a certain task, it must be easy for him to figure out how to do the task - and that in proceeding with each step of the task, the computer gives him just enough feedback so that he knows that each step has been undertaken succesfully. If the user makes an error and fails to get his task done, then the problem lies with the UI design for not making the process clear enough.
It does not mean interpreting undirected keystrokes for some sort of direction which is the kind of ridiculous premise you have filled your examples with.
And puh-leaze, before you even start, don't bother telling me how such and such trashcan does not follow that principle. I can point at any car with a flat tire and say "it doesn't work" - but that doesn't mean cars in general are useless.
Plus it was because of him that the Berlin wall came down.
Well, him and KITT. He could not have done it without his little buddy.
No, he isn't. Of course, he is known for his roles in Babewatch and Knight Rider,
Ten seasons of Baywatch plus spinoffs. Show in 140 countries.
he was moderately successful with his stupid "Looking for Freedom" song eons ago
That entire album went triple platinum. Subsequently, he has had 6 more albums reach platinum.
That's better than 99% of signed musicians ever do. So, if that's not enough to be a "mega-star" then what does it take? 8 platinum albums?
Yes, you think 'mere users' like me are absolute imbeciles, unable to meaningfully inform you of our needs, and certainly unable to realise that pushing the key marked 'delete' might actually result in something being deleted. You can deny it all you want, but you can't reconcile that denial with your initial expression of design philosophy in any credible way.
What initial expression? That there is no such thing as human error? So, saying that a programmer's failure to fully anticipate how the user will interact with the system means the user is an imbecile? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
My aging father who's afraid of changing anything on his computer lest he break something can see it's moronic, and he does get frustrated with it. The computer is backtalking him! The first time he saw that message, he thought he must have inadvertantly tried to delete a critical system file or something. I've had secretaries that only use the computer for email and word processing ask 'why does this thing think I'm an idiot? I mean, I know I'm not the smartest and all with these computers and stuff, but I think I know what 'delete' means.'
You keep going on and on and on about specific implementations. There could hardly be better proof that you are just lost in the forest. But, why don't you give me another example of how a specific trashcan implementation has a usuability problem and maybe that will convince me. I mean, its worked so well the first 10 million times you did it! Lol!
You sound like Bill Clinton, or half of the guys on my high school debate team... so proud of your ability to twist words and change subjects, and then you wonder why no one wants to listen to you anymore.
Pot kettle bang.
I initially replied to your post that claimed that "there is no such thing as "human error"" and went on to expound how any time the computer user appears to have made an error, the error was actually on the part of the programmer that failed to make the computer do what the user actually wanted, rather than what they commanded.
You truly can't see the forest, can you? No wonder you keep referencing the chewbacca defense - you don't get it, so you think there is nothing there. Like A. Square visiting Pointland, you can't be rescued from your all-knowing, self-satisfcation.
Projecting personal failings of all sorts on me for daring to disagree with you leads me to suspect some personal failings of your own. Whatever your motivation, designing software with the assumption that your users are all imbeciles is not only insulting and arrogant, it results in interfaces only imbeciles would want to use.
You are the one projecting personal failings. I have never once advocated designing software for imbeciles. You've translated your personal frustrations with trashcan implementations into a twisted belief that, "intuitiveness is a myth" and that accounting for human psychology - not imbecile psychology - is therefore worthless. Fortunately for my bank account, you're wrong - as my clients all heartily disagree with your viewpoint.
This distinction between implementation and concept is, at best, disingenuous. Some implementations are worse than others, yes (the Mac is only mildly annoying compared to the excruciating and insulting Windows version) but so what? They all suck.
Sadly for you, simply disagreeing does not prove anything, and that's all you have done since your initial post. Fundamentally it boils down to what the other respondent to your initial post spelled out - you want expert level behaviour out of the interface by default and having failed to figure out how to get that expert level behaviour, you blame the interface instead of the nut behind the wheel. If you are intent on making the computer get out of the way and do what you want with no failsafes, then you need to make the effort to learn how to turn off the failsafes.
I'm not criticising the implementation, I'm criticising the entire concept.
Yeah, that's why your initial response contained a long paragraph bitching, in excruciating detail, about the number of windows and mouse clicks you had to deal with on a macintosh versus a ms-windows computer in order to delete a file. Clearly that was a criticism of concept and not implementation.
If the user tells the computer to delete the file, the computer should DELETE THE FILE. Not move it to a 'trashcan' instead.
Pardon me for attributing to you the modicum of intelligence to understand that a user interface with a default behaviour making the most common errors the most expensive to recover from is the absolute poorest possible design.
If I had known that you were yet another programmer who is pathalogically incapable of wrapping his head around the fact that the vast majority of users are not, and have no wish to become, expert users of arcane and unforgiving interfaces, I would have never bothered responding.
Furthermore, the trashcan is a great example of an out of place metaphor. The computer 'trashcan' doesn't have enough in common with the real life trashcan to make the metaphor helpful or obvious. It's an ugly, annoying, kludge.
Ah, for the first time, an actual criticism of the concept and not a specific implementation. Too bad for you that I've already debunked this specific criticism twice now. You know, back when I said that the vast majority of the computer using population already has plenty of exposure to the metaphor so it's connection to the physical world is no longer relevant. Intuitiveness is about relating to the user's personal experience, not about requiring real-world and digital interfaces to be identical.
Seriously, how massive a fit of laughter did hearing of Hasselhoff called a 'mega-star' send you into?
Not much, since anyone who has watched much saturday night live knows that Hasselhoff is a mega-star in germany, and jokes about it grew stale years ago.
Ok, I will be pedantic.
I mention that the trashcan is a widespread, well-known interface for handling the recovery of deleted files.
You respond that it is a terrible interface because you personally find some of the more common implementations to be clumsy.
I respond that critques of specific implementations (the trees) do not invalidate the fact that the metaphor of the trashcan is now a widely-known and understood interface for the recovery of deleted files (the forest).
You respond that you understand the metaphor of the trashcan (something I never disputed) and then reiterate that some implementations suck.
I replied that your point was moot.
You continued to not get it.
I understand the metaphor. Doh.
I never said you didn't understand the metaphor of the trashcan.
But, it seems clear now that you do not understand the metaphor of not seeing the forest for the trees.
I doubt anybody would bother trying to get a refund, becuase it would be more trouble than it's worth. Even if there was a number to contact, chances are you'll get a recorded message saying "Life is hard, cry me a river" - if you get through at all.
Its illegal in the usa not to provide a way to receive refunds for problems with unattended vending machines. Any vending machine that does not prominetly display contact information for such refunds is in violation of their vending license.
You know, there's something fundamentally wrong with your thinking here. ...
When I push the delete button I want the damn thing deleted. I don't want to have to waste time dealing with a backtalking computer.
Forest and trees dude.
Different implementations of trashcans differ in their interfaces - but anyone who has used a computer in the last 10 years understands the basic metaphor - that recently deleted files can usually be undeleted by poking around in the desktop trashcan - you don't need specialist tools in order to undelete files like you once did.
An alphanumeric pad could well cost more, since you'd presumably need all the numbers plus a few of the letters. Plus they maybe don't make them in such quantities.
It is important to consider all the costs associated with user-interface design decisions. Focusing on materials costs and ignoring operating costs is not a good idea. While an alpha-num keybad may cost more than a numeric-only keypad, any such savings will probably be quickly overtaken by the cost of handling refund requests for miskeyed purchases.
You can have 70 popups that ask if you're really sure you want to do something. Someone out there will still be stupid enough to click yes 70 times- thats human error.
No, that's bad design - exactly the kind of "programmer who doesn't understand the users" mentality that plagues software design today. If 1 popup doesn't correct the problem, what sane person would expect 69 more to improve the situation? All that does is train the user to click "OK" 70 times without reading the popups - the software equivalent of the "little boy who cried wolf."
Instead of "70 popups" a better design is to provide some sort of "undo" functionality.
DWIM is an absolutely fucktarded idea.
If your definition of DWIM is "guess what I mean" then of course it is a fucktard idea. But that is not what DWIM is. DWIM is about enabling the user to tell the system what he wants it to do in a fashion that is intuitive to the user - even if it is a real pain in the ass for the programmer to implement.
As for your trash can metaphor- there's two issues with it. FIrst off, users don't understand it. You wouldn't believe how many people don't know how to clean their trashcan and end up taking it in for repairs when the hard drive fails. If the trashcan auto-deletes, they get confused when files they expected to be in there aren't. Its not a cureall.
While there are undoubtedly a large number of people who don't understand the trashcan metaphor, there are orders of magnitude more who do. Variants are in MS Windows and in MacOS, that covers about 95% of the computer using public - probably close to a billion people. We don't have even 1% of them experiencing the problems you describe. Regardless, a trashcan that provides an indication as to how long each deleted file has before it becomes permanently deleted solves the problem in both cases.
Secondly- space costs. Especially on a remote server. Why should Cingular pay for someone else's mistakes? There's nothing in it for them, and it would make their server software more complex and error prone. It seems a lose/lose to them from here.
Disk space is cheap. People are not. The cost of each service call that tells a person no, they can not undelete a voicemail could easilt pay for the space for 1000 and probably closer to 10,000 people's deleted messages for a week.
Back when computers were expensive and people were cheap, arcane specialist interfaces made sense, it was cheaper to train people than to pay for the computing resources to make intuitive interfaces. That has not been the case for at least a decade now.
Needless to say, this incident was entirely my fault.
As one of apparently very few programmers with an active interest in human interface design, I beg to differ. I believe that there is no such thing as "human error" when dealing with a computing device. You did not intend to permanently delete that voicemail message, but the system did it anyway.
To me, that indicates a failure in the design of the user interface, not a failure on your part. Ultimately, computers should be DWIM - do what I mean - but failing that, interfaces should not impose irrevocable consquences on the user unless there is just absolutely no other way to do it.
In the case of accidental deletions, we've already come up with a workable metaphor - the trash can, from which the deletion can be retrieved until the trash is either manually "emptied" or overflows and you get a FIFO behaviour on older deletions becoming permanent.
Ain't no reason a voice-mail system can't have a similar interface. Chances are, the UI designers could prevent most such accidental deletions up front at their level, but that they have not done a very good job with that either.
but nowhere do you seem to recognize that it is only by pointlessly shitting on idealism and hope that people become conniving assholes.
And that's the only reason that people become conniving assholes?
Get a grip. Greed and self interest are basic parts of the human psyche, no amount of happy happy joy joy is going to make that change.