Is There Such a Thing as "Too User Friendly"?

rtphokie asks: "The story about the TiVo get-together along with some recent trials and tribulations rolling out a knowledge base along with the time I've spent recently helping my 80 year old grandfather with this VCR and TV has gotten me thinking about user interfaces and the elusive "user-friendly" label. When someone who thinks of themselves as 'non computer savvy' works with a gadget like TiVo and compains that it's 'too complicated', how should we react? Why are users immediately forgiven for not even taking the least amount of effort to look for a solution to their confusion in the manual. The tendency has always been to blame the interface and ultimately the engineers who designed it but isn't there a point where users have got to share some of the blame? Why do today's software and consumer electronics users expect to be able to fire up their new toy and magically have a complete understanding of how to use it?"

I've heard

[acceleriter]

that after Taco gets a few shots into him, he becomes way too user-friendly, if you know what I mean.

How user friendly is a car?

[gelfling]

I mean people still crash for no obvious reason, right? How user friendly is a refrigerator or a power drill? How user friendly is your girlfriend?

Intuitive interfaces

[evenprime]

The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
Bruce Ediger, in comp.os.linux.misc, on X interfaces

Good UI quote...

[Ian Peon]

Credited to one of my coworkers (who designs UIs), after pressing the wrong button on a shoddy UI:

"ARRGH, do what I'm THINKING, not what I'm telling you!!!"

Re:How user friendly is a car?

[Jack Porter]

You mean I clicked the "1 reply beneath your current threshold" link, and I didn't even get a funny comment about the poster's girlfriend?!

It's called...

[wo1verin3]

Microsoft Bob

Re:RTFM

[digitalsushi]

I dunno.. I mean we have watches and clocks that set themselves via a radio signal broadcasted out of a mountain. To record a TV show you want, you move a pointed until the name is yellow and hit the red button- you dont have to know the times, or stations. Cars have computers in them, but they tell you when they need to be fixed. They can tell you what street you're on. It's getting harder to get lost.

as a technology gets more commonplace, it all gets easier. The first guy who used the Internet- eh, ok it was the Internet until he found the second smartest guy on earth and hacked his computer. From then on, it's been easier and easier to get online. Now my grandma gets online and snipes other grandmas on eBay. "I 0wned that l1mp b1zcuit, d33ry!" "Ok grandma, just dont get me flood pinged again" "Oh I wont, I'm sp00fing. 3h, wh3r3 4r3 my d3ntur35!!" Ok, maybe that last example is a little overboard. But my point is that as tech moves forward, it gets easier to use. There's examples in the other direction, but the people who can use it get smaller and smaller, and that doesnt seem like the "way that it normally is". You know, like ubergeeks that have electron microscopes and the original handicams that can see underwear.

Re:"Is There Such a Thing as "Too User Friendly"?"

[Darth_Burrito]

Ba, phones are too complicated.

First you have to sign up for a local carier, then you have to sign up for a long distance carrier. Then you get called four times a day as various phone companies try to get you to switch or sign up for extra features.

Then you have to remember all these strange and bizarrely complicated numbers. 10-10-811-Charlie-Tango-Niner, 1-800-Collect, dialing 1 for long distance, dialing 8 to get an outside line, etc. When I think of my good friend Ben, the first thing to pop to mind isn't an arbitrary ten digit number. Using numbers for phones is no better than listing your website by ip address sans domain.

And all that's without getting into the kinds of things people are starting to use phones for... instant messaging, checking email, listening to mp3s, things the device's interface is piss poor at dealing with.

Re:User friendlyness isn't always good.

[simetra]

Yes, there are those of us who feel the same way. Last night, I met a Jackass who works for Microsoft. When I mentioned that I like open-source software, he said "Well, that's a nice hobby." Bastard. So we talked about this for a while, and one of his points was that with Windows, you don't have to fuss with scripts and config files. I said, that's exactly why I like using Linux, because I have total control over it - among other things.
I personally drive a stick. I hate cruise control. People who can only drive automatics should be shipped off to Greenland.

Of course things are too user friendly

[Prong_Thunder]

There are too many stupid people on earth.

We need to make things harder to use, and eventually as a result the stupid portion of the world population will be culled out of the gene pool.

Of course, for this to work we'll need to graft lethal devices onto simple household appliances, but i'm sure there are enough bitter sociopathic techies out there to make this a nightmarish reality.

interface

[depsypher]

Why do today's software and consumer electronics users expect to be able to fire up their new toy and magically have a complete understanding of how to use it

Haven't you ever watched Star Trek? Whenever the crew is finds itself on the bridge of an alien ship, it usually takes them about 5 seconds to figure out how to download the entire database, transport the stranded crew member and turn off the self destruct sequence. And meanwhile I'm still looking for a powerful IDE with a decent interface :(

Re:You're a luser too

[nobodyman]

*I* know how to give a mind-blowing orgasm :)

Masturbation doesn't count, pal.

User Friendly? Ugh...

[Kenshin]

I think JeffK's explaination applies right now...

http://www.somethingawful.com/jeffk/dr-episode1/pa ge-04.htm
http://www.somethingawful.com/jeffk/dr-episode1/pa ge-05.htm
http://www.somethingawful.com/jeffk/dr-episode1/pa ge-06.htm

Re:Read? Why the hell should I read?

[spasm]

"The telephone isn't all that simple and yet more basic than you give it credit for."

No shit. My sister in law asked if we had a phone where she could make a 'private' phone call last week; I directed her to the back bedroom where we still have a rotary phone. 3 minutes later she was back asking "so how do I use this thing?"

She's 23. I feel old.

Is There Such a Thing as "Too User Friendly"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, clippy.

Re:It's an underrated approach

[BigBlockMopar]

The world is divided into two categories. Those who "get it" and those who do not. Those who "get it" understand that everything has a pattern and all they have to do is play with the gadget and read the manual/documentation and understanding will come. Those who do not get it are akin to those who call us over to set the time on their VCR without even checking to see if they could do it themselves. Those who ask us 200 times how to copy/paste and cannot remember simply because their mindset is that computers are scary complex things that do not make sense.
These people are not going to be helped by simplification. These people are not going to be helped by hand-holding.

These people are gonna be helped by Darwin!

They'll starve to death when there are no more bank tellers and they can't pay for their food because they can't figure out how to withdraw money!

They'll freeze when the gas company cuts off their power for not paying their bill online!

They'll run their cars into bridge columns because they're distracted trying to figure out how to turn off a rental car's air conditioning!

They won't be able to find a mate because they'll never leave the house for fear of missing a TV show that they can't videotape because the VCR is so horribly complicated!

Re:"Is There Such a Thing as "Too User Friendly"?"

[DavidYaw]

Yes there is... Microsoft Bob.