[TriLUG] User Friendliness

[Timothy A. Chagnon]

I applaud your effort. Here's my $0.02.

On Fri, 2004-06-04 at 01:00, Jeff Tickle wrote:
> Because if there's one
> thing Microsoft got right, it's making a computer easy to use...

I disagree with you here.  I think Microsoft has done much harm by
making things "user friendly."  They have essentially lowered the bar
_so_ far in this respect that users don't learn anything about what's
really going on in the background.  Plus, doing anything slightly more
advanced takes that many more steps to get past the user friendliness.

<bad_analogy_pun>
Teach a man to cat and he'll cat for a day.  Teach a man to man and
he'll man for the rest of his life.
</bad_analogy_pun>

Of course Linux could use more people making GUIs and user friendly
interfaces, but I think we shouldn't hide things or dumb it down. 
Personally I think the better approach is just to provide more
information at hand, and make advanced tasks more efficient.

> ... and as much as I make fixing people's
> little Windows boxes temporarily... I'd rather make that money
> permanently fixing them with a Linux install.
> 

Here, here.  And it might even make people learn a bit and be more
self-sufficient.

-Tim
-- 
Timothy A. Chagnon <tchagnon at futeki.net>
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