Is There Such a Thing as "Too User Friendly"? 680
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 broke my computer (Score:1, Interesting)
You seem hostile... (Score:2, Interesting)
Seriously though, I can't say I blame you...we are too lazy to read a manual...or possibly just to prideful. At the same time, I remember a Slashdot article a few weeks ago about manuals in other countries and how users there actually read them...
So while I understand your point, I think a truly good interface needs no manual. At the same time, I also believe that the possibility exists that such a thing isn't possible.
People designing the interface just have to face facts that they can't please everyone...and I think we'd all be better off if people would stop buying devices they have no intention of taking the time to learn...I mean, it's great that we live in a country where you can buy anything you want...just don't bitch when you're too lazy to learn how to use it properly...
Re:First Post (Score:2, Interesting)
User friendliness is a bit too subjective a term - it varies so much between users. One of the problems with a lot of modern technology is that people want so many features that extra buttons have to be added in, and extra steps - a large percentage of people never use these. I only use 4 buttons of around 30 on my DVD remote. If we took these off then we'd only have "Play", "Pause", "Stop", "scan" and "FW/ Rewind" (although I had to use "subtitle" for Crouching Tiger...), and then the techies would complain. A lot of it's about having something for everyone, and showing off all their "cool" features, but for the less tech-savvy this extra level of complexity just makes things unusable.
This coupled with the fact that a lot of the manuals are in poorly translated Korean (No joke) can make things intimidating for people - but most users are now more tech savvy. Home computers, VCRs (DVDs) et al have only been around for the last 20-30 years or so - is it any surprise that those outside the generation that grew up with them find them a little daunting?
The user-friendliness will change with the same controls / appliances over the next 50 years as the 'older generation' changes to the relatively 'tech-savvy'
UI is not that hard (Score:4, Interesting)
Now go build your system so that someone can use it without knowing anything. Also, make it so that an advanced user can get to the functions she wants without going through some idiotic "wizard."
UI tests with actual users? What a interesting thought!!! Maybe someone should try that, too!
Biggest two problems: (Score:3, Interesting)
Problem 2: Easy-to-use is obviously subjective. I prefer a heavily hierarchical organization in everything. On windows machines, I'll typically have only 4 categories under "programs", each with sub-categories and sometimes sub-sub-categories, ie. Entertainment->Games->FPS->Q3. It makes sense to me and allows me to launch programs more quickly. It frustrates the hell out of my girlfriend, who prefers the "Giant alphabetical order list" of programs. Of course, her method is far more suitable on my iBook.
So, to summarize: Ease of use still requires a little bit of education/effort in learning. What's easy to use for you or the interface designer may not be easy to use for Grandpa or my girlfriend or me. Allow a good degree of customization and configuring, but make those options obvious and easy to locate.
Different Interfaces for Different Skill Levels (Score:4, Interesting)
That last part's a bit broad, so I'll clear things up. With a normal PC, you've got CPU cycles to spare, and the computer has time to tell if you move deliberately for a menu choice, or if you're hunting for it, or if you keep choosing something, and cancelling out of the choice.
For a VCR, the default interface should be as simple as the buttons on the front. If you read the manual a bit, it will tell you how to turn on the intermediate features. If you read a lot, you can turn on the advanced features. If you read waaay too much, you get to turn on the command-line interface that uses reverse-Polish notation, in Aramaic, but displayed approximately by using Turkish for vowels, and Cantonese for consonants.
Everyone's not as comfortable with it as folks like us are, and because computers can do sooo bloody much, we should stop boring them, and give the computers more to do, such as providing different interfaces for different skill levels. We use short command interfaces with our kids and our pets ("Sit! Quiet!"), and much longer command interfaces with our peers ("Dude, nice frag!"). It's a very natural thing to do, and we ought to start allowing computers to do the same.
Cars are a very good example. (Score:2, Interesting)
I feel that consumer electronics fall into the same category. To be able to use consumer electronics "out of the box", you have have some familiarity with consumer electronics. It doesn't take years of use. It takes just enough use for the customer to grasp the basic concepts. Then off they go with TVs, stereos, DVDs, and consoles. Just as soon as they RTFM!
Re:RTFM (Score:2, Interesting)
I developed a FAQ, then it grew over 3 months to a manual covering every task they were expected to do. They never read it. It just sat on the desks.
The moral of the story is that people will never read a manual unless they absolutely have to. Speaking of which I have a Perl in 24 hours book that I bought last summer that I need to finish....
The fundamental problem here is not... (Score:2, Interesting)
fundamental concepts and being able to apply them in the learning feedback
loop so to enable second nature integration of the users mindset.
But as things are done in teh computer industry and competition and
anti-competition, it's hard for a user to make second nature anything
because the industry keeps changing things.
I.E. should a user have to learn how to use a word processor that they
would otherwise not, due to using something else, so to be able to read
a
But the problem is even worse than that as the whole nature of a computers
and programming is simply the act of automating complexity that is made up
of simple things. A process of automation that consist of some very basic
and small set of actions/functionality. And this level of simplicity of
applying concepts or actions/functionality is being kept from users in
general.
And it even gets worse, as the DRM is going to make it difficult to learn
how to do it the difficult way, should the user so chose to do outside or
four years of full time colledge and certification and license buying
etc...
So I guess what it all amounts to is the effort to not allow the user to
actually do things for themselves enough to actually learn something that
would help the user to make their use of computer more second nature.
You cannot make something user friendly and not allow user to use it. And
apparently blaming the users for the failure of the industry to what they
need to is the best excuse the industry can come up with. Hell they seem
to get everything else from the users, from ides to feedback to money to
I suspect this will be modded down but then that is apparently to be
expected.
You're a luser too (Score:5, Interesting)
But why don't we look at some fields that perhaps are not part of our aptitude. How much time and effort have you spent learning about,
- a recipe?
- fashion and clothing?
- fine art?
- your elected representatives (quick, name the ones in the State capital
- giving your girl/boyfriend a mind-blowing orgasm?
Now, you may say, 'but these things aren't important to me; I don't have time for them.' And then you'll understand why all the 'lusers' don't RTFM.
Blame (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:It's an underrated approach (Score:5, Interesting)
These people are not going to be helped by simplification. These people are not going to be helped by hand-holding.
There needs to be some sort of "mind building" curriculum for people who are afraid of electronics. I believe that people who are told a 3-step process (such as copy-paste) 200 times and STILL cannot remember are mentally defective and in need of rehabilitive therapy.
Think about it. If someone is told even 10 times that "If you push the doorbell a bell will ring" and cannot remember it, you'll assume they are brain damaged and treat them as such.
That's how I've come to treat my mother when she asks me how to copy and paste. Finally I took her to the local drugstore and made her copy a piece of paper. I brought her home and had her paste it onto another piece of paper. I then had her describe the steps she had to take to me by writing them down. If she skipped something like "Put the money into the machine" or "select number of copies" then I'd get confused and make her go back to the beginning. Afterwards I brought her over to the computer and said "There are no settings. There is nothing to remember. You drag the mouse to highlight the text you want to copy. You press the right mouse button and choose "copy". You move to the new document and right-click and choose "paste" HOW is that more complex than what you just did with the copier over at the drugstore? HOW is that more complex than tying your shoes?"
She agreed, and then 10 minutes later called me over because she couldn't figure out how to copy/paste. She didn't even try.
-Sara
Re:It's an underrated approach (Score:1, Interesting)
"when a book and a head come together
and it sounds hollow -
this has not to be due to the book."
I have dicovered that some people are not only "not so open-minded" but even "close-minded" concerning special tasks, mostly because they are afraid of doing this task. math for example. sometimes, its not that people arent able to do this and that - they are just afraid of math in general - and stop thinking properly. "I am not good in math." click! destination meets destiny - they refuse to do the current task as well.
on the other hand, there was an article about the "thumb-generation" here on slashdot, not too long ago. the essence was, that young people are trained (because of their mobiles etc.) to use their thumbs, when other people use their indexfinger... maybe there are such things like a "thumb" and an "indexfinger" in our brains as well - my little sister gets easily along with computers without any special training (but she hates math, though
Willfull Ignorance (Score:2, Interesting)
While working on a PC in the messenger department, I listened for about 10 minutes to the manager and another employee talk about sports. I was really impressed with their mastery of obscure baseball statistics, and the details of player's careers that were used to support their arguments.
Then for the 3rd or 4th time, I once again had to show him how to find the "print" menu item.
My Grandmother is another good example. At age 55 she went back to school and became a nurse, graduating 3rd in NY. Last time I offered to set up a computer and teach her how to use email and a simple word processor, she refused because she thought it would be "too complicated" so she wouldn't be able to understand it.
Then there are the users who simply don't read the messages that pop up when something does go wrong, even when the solution is in the message. Things like the user thinking the jaz disk he was copying to his drive was broken because he kept getting the "Drive out of space" error message, or DTP techs thinking the printer is broken when Adobe ATM puts up the "FONT not found" message.
The fax machine we used had the paper supply in a open, vertical feed tray. When you no longer saw the usual stack of paper sticking up out of the machine, it was time to add more. This was a bit too much for some people, so I taped a sign to the tray, so only when the last sheet was used, the sign would be visible. I still got the amusement of watching several people staring at the machine waiting for a fax to come out. After a few minutes I'd ask them to read aloud the sign, which was "If you just put more paper in you wouldn't be standing here waiting like an idiot"
Another example was in a simple program I made, which was used by a dozen DTP techs (whos *job* it was to know computers). Since there was one part that had the potential of the user making a typo, the error message gave very clear instructions on what to do. The 5th unsucessfull try resulted in a message that addressed the user by name, made a rude noise, told him to call for help, and did not have any buttons to dismiss the dialog box. It took less than a week before that feature was used, and the typo mysteriously disappeared when I was watching the user try it for the 6th time......
Basically, i think there is a case to be made for more user-unfriendly software. If the user is repeatetly doing something that can't be automagically fixed, rather than keeping him in a endless loop of:
user goof --> error message and fix suggestion --> user ignoring it and hitting "ok"--> repeat same user goof
the software should become unfriendly, and force the user to do something different, like actually read the error message.
There is also an issue of the software having the needed features, but the user hasn't been taught the skills on how to find things in a new program. Basic things like actually reading all the menu choices in a methodical way, or choosing the one labeled "help"
Issues with the elderly, Psychology of aging. (Score:5, Interesting)
To design something for someone of that age, you have to draw upon their Crystallized Intelligence(the store of knowledge or information that a given society has accumulated over time). You might (if you're *really* a geek) be able to do something like rig up an analog alarm clock to the TiVO and expoit the grandfather's 30 years of experience setting alarm clocks to get him to successfully set the TiVO. Yes, he'll probably still need a TV Guide to look up the time so he can set it in the alarm clock, but the point is that the show will be recorded. It sounds crazy, but older adults often exploit their crystallized intelligence to create strategies that work around deficiencies in fluid intelligence.
If people hack network interface cards into their TiVO's, why not hack Grandpa interface alarm clocks into them as well?
Why, why, why? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why does my Mandrake Linux box revert to KDE defaults every time I reboot, regardless of the settings in GDM? Oh, I guess I should read the source code to figure it out. God forbid that the bleeping radio buttons do what they say.
Why does the UI for Gcombust look like a preflight checklist of a commercial airliner? (I'd mention Xine and the Gimp, but
What moron decided that in the service of fashion, all television, DVD and VCR buttons should be labeled in dark charcoal lettering on a black background, no larger than 4 point type, and angled slightly toward the floor?
Why does my Scientific-Atlanta TV remote have the power switch right next to "info?" Oops. And why does it forget my channel setting when turned off?
And then there's house wiring. Why are my wall switches wired so that the switch on the left controls the light on the right, and the switch on the right controls the light on the left?
Why does the fax machine require that the paper be inserted face-down, so I can't see/dial the phone number that's written on the document?
Why do no two photocopy machines work the same way? More paper winds up spoiled in the wastebasket next to the average copier than on anyone's desk.
How many U.S. post offices have you been to where the drive-by letter boxes are on the WRONG side of the car?
Which side of the car is the fuel filler door supposed to be on? Do car designers like to go to the 7-Eleven and watch the chaos?
Why does pushing the window button forward roll the window down in one car and up in the other? Is there something wrong with standards? Gee, maybe we should randomly invert the operation of the steering wheel, or the accelerator/brake pedals.
What idjit put the car radio's "AM/FM band" button right next to the "pop the faceplate off and drop it on the floor" button?
It must be the user's fault.
Re:You're missing the point. (Score:4, Interesting)
I think of it as a simple micro-economic question: Programming the VCR is worth 50 to them (50 of what, I don't know). Asking me to do it costs them 10 (and costs me 10). Doing it themselves costs them 100, so it's not worth it for them to do it themselves. If they learned it, their cost would decrease, but you can't learn everything -- and their cost of learning a new technology is much higher than yours.
Which leads to another micro-economic concept: Specialization. They spend their time and effort learning about (e.g.) cooking and doing it; I spend mine on technology. We help each other out. It's much better than me cooking mediocre food and them struggling with their VCR. Also, they learn *new* recipes much faster and I learn new tech much faster.
if you have authority over these people, you can easily make them figure it out.
If only I had more authority