Double-clicking is certainly also a problem for new users. It was my job to train a staff of typesetters on Quark Xpress and Mac and so on -- they'd used a proprietary, text-based system on some kind of Unix before. Anyway, the supervisor never did learn to double-click. That may seem impossible but it's the truth. He'd try for a half-hour at a stretch, even using both hands. I changed the click-speed -- we tried everything. The company kept him on for a while, using the old system, but last I heard he was unemployed.
There are two things to think about Apple's one-button mouse.
First -- think about training a non - computer user on the mouse, or even think about a non - power user with a mouse. He will push down with his fingers indiscriminately until it is explained to him to push down on the left -- from then on he pushes down with his hand awkwardly to the left, trying to remember. You see -- to her the mouse is not buttons -- it is a mouse. It is an extension of her hand -- the way she reaches into the computer desktop to grasp icons -- and her instinctual motion is a grasping or pressing motion -- not a tapping of various buttons.
Second -- of course Apple is hyping. People use Windows and Linux machines and two- or more-button mice all the time -- even grandmothers and preschoolers. However, for Apple the one-button mouse is a sort of trademark. It is a visible, tangible, ostentatious advertisement of their commitment to intuitive computing. They are not going to change it anymore than America is going to change the eagle.
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Double-clicking is certainly also a problem for new users. It was my job to train a staff of typesetters on Quark Xpress and Mac and so on -- they'd used a proprietary, text-based system on some kind of Unix before. Anyway, the supervisor never did learn to double-click. That may seem impossible but it's the truth. He'd try for a half-hour at a stretch, even using both hands. I changed the click-speed -- we tried everything. The company kept him on for a while, using the old system, but last I heard he was unemployed.
There are two things to think about Apple's one-button mouse.
First -- think about training a non - computer user on the mouse, or even think about a non - power user with a mouse. He will push down with his fingers indiscriminately until it is explained to him to push down on the left -- from then on he pushes down with his hand awkwardly to the left, trying to remember. You see -- to her the mouse is not buttons -- it is a mouse. It is an extension of her hand -- the way she reaches into the computer desktop to grasp icons -- and her instinctual motion is a grasping or pressing motion -- not a tapping of various buttons.
Second -- of course Apple is hyping. People use Windows and Linux machines and two- or more-button mice all the time -- even grandmothers and preschoolers. However, for Apple the one-button mouse is a sort of trademark. It is a visible, tangible, ostentatious advertisement of their commitment to intuitive computing. They are not going to change it anymore than America is going to change the eagle.