[Tfug] 2 weeks of Hackintosh fun..

[Bexley Hall]

--- On Mon, 11/10/08, Bowie J. Poag <bpoag at comcast.net> wrote:

> As I see it, there's a fine line between freedom of
> choice and option glut.  Having too many options will
> eventually get in the way between the user and what the user
> wants. This is why Starbucks is failing. Most of the time,
> people just want a damn cup of coffee, not a questionnaire.
> You may want your "non-fat soy venti hazelnut chai
> latte'" on occasion, but given the choice between
> waiting around for your hyper-specific coffee request, and
> simply grabbing a pitcher of coffee off a hotplate, guess
> which one sees the most activity? People, in general, tend
> to seek the path of least resistance. It's a law of
> nature.

[aside:  IIRC, the handbook used by morticians advises
building funeral parlors that "favor the customer's right (side)".
So, put the more expensive caskets off to that side, etc.
Why?  Because people tend to favor turning to their right
instead of left and the mortician's goal is to *lead* you
(in this trying time) to what *he* wants to sell you! ]

Exactly.  People (developers) often make the mistake of thinking
"more options" == better product.

Aside from "tinkerers", most people just want to *use* the
product they have purchased.  They don't care that you can
change the colors of all of the items on the screen.  Or,
maybe they'll play with changing the ringtone once or twice.
But, then the novelty wears off and they just want the
phone to *ring*.  And they want to be able to hear their
party without the call being dropped!

It is very educational -- and humbling! -- to watch new users
when first exposed to a product (whether that is a piece of
hardware or software).  It's amazing how often what *you*
think is important is not important at all -- even (especially?)
if you have conducted extensive user surveys and implemented 
*exactly* what the users claimed they wanted!  :<

Good interfaces (which is what a desktop is, of course) are
intuitive.  And, aside from window dressing, most users would
accept a good interface "as is" -- perhaps playing around with
some configuration changes either for the sake of ego (i.e., to
make their mark on this instance of the product) or just out
of curiosity.  Many will eventually "return to defaults".

When Robotron was released, the dual joystick was a novel concept.
It took just about two ohnoseconds for folks to embrace that
interface wholeheartedly.  OTOH, Defender's interface was hard for
anyone but hardcore gamers to master.