[TriLUG] User Friendliness

[Dave Sorenson]

Good thoughts, but most people are non techies and are lazy. They don't care
HOW an OS works, they just want it made simple for them to accomplish a
task. Given the choice between Microsoft spoon feeding or telling them to
read MAN pages to figure Linux out M$ will rule. If there were no other
option then your logic would work, but facts are facts these people are used
to things being dirt simple and they don't want you to make them think. 

Since these people are the majority of users at the moment, any OS that
wants to challenge M$ has to accept that low user commitment and "why cant
I...?" expectation and move on. To be elitist and hold on to "we shouldn't
dumb things down" yet expect the lemmings to set out on their own is
unrealistic.  

Dave S



-----Original Message-----
From: trilug-bounces at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-bounces at trilug.org] On Behalf
Of Timothy A. Chagnon
Sent: Friday, June 04, 2004 2:08 AM
To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list
Subject: Re: [TriLUG] User Friendliness

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>