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Topic |
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danamania
Official 68k Muse
Australia
1193 Posts |
 Posted - 03 Apr 2002 : 21:28:21
I've been thinking lately...(thats why I haven't been posting as much - takes a lot of time, effort and planning to get me thinking properly :D Back when the first mac came out, the entire mouse/windows/menus thing was pretty much foreign to computing, and completely new to the population in general... and up till recent OS's, one thing that continually peeps into my consciousness is noticing how dead simple some parts of the macOS are - like turning appletalk on or off. The control panel by default shows just which physical plug a connection is attempted through... while even in 'advanced' mode a button with 'options' appears and we have the ability to... turn it on or off!. and it works. It looks dumbproof, and with a little knowledge it is. When I needed to network a couple of Amigas for example, there were -dozens- of possible settings, parities, speeds, parallel/serial. delays, all the extras that just look overwhelming. So I'd been thinking that with OSX, a lot of that simplicity has been lost. It's still a very easy OS to use, but there are parts that aren't as "well thats obvious" as before, and it was a bit of a concern to me. Although I can learn anything GUIwise cos thats where my passions are, I was worried that the clarity macs gave a newbie user in a lot of areas was disappearing. Being a sensible type too, I like to argue against my beliefs in my own mind - make arguments that reject what I feel as truth, to look at things from the other side, and doing this I realised that for the general population - computers and the like aren't anywhere near as foreign as in 1984. Trying a little experiment, and helping my mother who'd been interested in writing on a puter, I let her at my 540c, and guided her without showing any specifics... (the last time she'd used a computer was in the late 80's when she had a peek around an Amiga 2000 and put all she could in the cute lil bin...). I didn't have to show her specifics! She knew what Word was... doubleclicking desktop icons as opposed to single clicking buttons came naturally - she even browsed menus withuot me needing to go "this is a menu, click it, it has options and submenus". No hinting to hold down the mouse button while she did it either. The odd term like 'font' and 'add break' weren't obvious, which is fair... Thats pretty surprising from someone whose direct exposure to computers is probably an hour over a lifetime. Think it's likely that general computer -culture- spreads these terms around, shows them on television, writes about them in newspapers and speaks them through people like me enough for a nonuser to pick up things? Or is my one-experiment-on-a-family-member pretty pointless, cos she could just be an exceptionally bright cookie? Is it me being so computer oriented that I've told her more than I thought over time... dana
(as an aside, as we drove past Microsoft in North Sydney a month ago, my mother also went "oooh let's blow it up!". Wonder where she picked that up from :D. |
~Coxy
Leader, Tactical Ops Unit
Australia
2822 Posts |
Posted - 03 Apr 2002 : 21:47:04
quote:
(as an aside, as we drove past Microsoft in North Sydney a month ago, my mother also went "oooh let's blow it up!". Wonder where she picked that up from :D.
I thought this would be a rant against the AppleTalk control panel at first... Damn, I hate that thing, thank the gods for LocalTalk bridge! 
They really should have made the AT cdev a CSM!
~Coxy - Leader, Tactical Operations Unit
00014 Macs liberated |
Trash80toG-4
NIGHT STALKER
USA
2899 Posts |
Posted - 03 Apr 2002 : 22:10:17
quote:
I've been thinking lately...(thats why I haven't been posting as much - takes a lot of time, effort and planning to get me thinking properly :D Thats pretty surprising from someone whose direct exposure to computers is probably an hour over a lifetime. Think it's likely that general computer -culture- spreads these terms around, shows them on television, writes about them in newspapers and speaks them through people like me enough for a nonuser to pick up things? Or is my one-experiment-on-a-family-member pretty pointless, cos she could just be an exceptionally bright cookie? Is it me being so computer oriented that I've told her more than I thought over time...
i'm trying not to think, it gets dangerous when somebody gets me thinking!when you started in macs you had already done a lot of GUI time so it probably seemed intuitive. once anybody gets to a certain point it all starts to make sense (or it never will) all of a sudden. it's kinda like the experiences each a critical mass and then you go from total confusion to to a kind of mind numbing uncertainty, but you've got a clue where to look for answers at last. don't know about down there, but ATM's, information kiosks, VCR's and all manner of devices have pointers, menus, windows etc. i think it has creeped into popular culture quite a bit. even the ads on tv, scenes in tv and movies, lots of places show computers in use. it's tough to watch anything on the learning channel without being exposed to images of people interacting with computers in order to find the titanic or whatnot. that's my $.02
jt  ™
Edited by - Trash80toG-4 on 03 Apr 2002 22:15:54 |
danamania
Official 68k Muse
Australia
1193 Posts |
Posted - 03 Apr 2002 : 22:25:35
quote:
i'm trying not to think, it gets dangerous when somebody gets me thinking!
thats cos any seriously bright person like y'self takes thinking to the point of creating more thinking :) quote:
when you started in macs you had already done a lot of GUI time so it probably seemed intuitive. once anybody gets to a certain point it all starts to make sense (or it never will) all of a sudden. it's kinda like the experiences each a critical mass and then you go from total confusion to to a kind of mind numbing uncertainty, but you've got a clue where to look for answers at last.
Definitely - and the same for my mother in a sense (as you say below) with experiences of the non-direct kind. However, being a 99% Amiga user before hitting the mac, I used to think Amigas were quite intuitive - then a system that was more-so up and smacked me in the face, bit me and I've been addicted since. quote:
even the ads on tv, scenes in tv and movies, lots of places show computers in use. it's tough to watch anything on the learning channel without being exposed to images of people interacting with computers in order to find the titanic or whatnot.
Yes! thats my point... I think its rubbing off. Speaking of adverts, I remember one a few years ago which was simply a simplified computer screen, with a mouse pointer... it moved to an icon and the "clic-clic" noise is one I can still recall. I'm sure thats taught people "doubleclicking" as much as any amount of hands on training! dana
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danamania
Official 68k Muse
Australia
1193 Posts |
Posted - 03 Apr 2002 : 22:29:00
quote:
I thought this would be a rant against the AppleTalk control panel at first... Damn, I hate that thing, thank the gods for LocalTalk bridge!
They really should have made the AT cdev a CSM!
Ooooh yes - especially for the slower machines, like laptops that have flat pram batteries and need appletalk resetting to use the port that the express modem uses like my damned 540c that keeps driving me insane... (do I sound bitter... GOOD!) dana (the control strip was so underutilised as part of the default OS...)
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~Coxy
Leader, Tactical Ops Unit
Australia
2822 Posts |
Posted - 04 Apr 2002 : 17:56:47
The problem with the control strip on powerbooks is the length: a few more modules and my control strip would cover the bottom of the screen, from right to left. (Dock Classic, it is! )~Coxy - Leader, Tactical Operations Unit
00014 Macs liberated |
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GUI musings.
68k of the Week: kastegir's PowerBook 180.