[OT] How long before..

[Thomas McGrath III]

And don't we all at some point think "We know best". The problem is there are many many people that think they know best in direct conflict with those of us that actually do. ;-)

I have studied Fitz law for many years (20 plus years) in developing software and systems for people who can not speak and I have studied the development of motor planning and frequent repetitive tasks for handicapped people. When Microsoft came out with the Ribbon interface I sat through a ninety minute lecture (from the programmers at Microsoft, I believe it was from Lars a lead programmer at Microsoft) on how they studied user interaction and repetitive tasks and tracked eye movement and hand/mouse movements and how they applied Fitz law in deciding what should go where in the new interface. After it came out everyone hated it, it was confusing, it broke common tasks and all of the legacy users felt lost or at least could not leverage their years of computer usage experience. People complained for many many months. And then they stopped complaining.

It was wrong, It wasn't logical or intuitive and I knew why. 

They had abused Fitz law in applying it. The one missing part they overlooked was that Fitz law is great as long as the decision to move or associate different keys or buttons or menu items 'does not override common sense' which they did override. It was the equivalent of splitting up Copy Paste and Select All since more people tend to use copy paste by themselves then they use Select all with copy paste, but this is only true in some text based situations. People are used to having these three commands together in almost 'all' programs so just because in Word they are not used together as often as in say Photoshop is no reason to break the common norm of them being together. People develop a motor plan even for accessing menu items and although Fitz law translates into saying that it makes sense to put the more frequently used items together and push the less used items out of the way doesn't make it right AND by doing so in a situation like this will do more harm than good since people are used to them being together and have spent many years developing motor plans based on them being together and it is just plain common sense to keep them together. 

So Fitz law, although useful for grouping related items and making related tasks easier to manage, is not appropriate in this case and should never override common sense or in my opinion should never override well established motor plans. But Microsoft went ahead and made changes like this all across the board 'thinking they knew best' and that they had 'scientific' reasons and years of research for doing so and they explained all of that in the ninety minute lecture. But that does not make it right. They used all of their knowledge and research and fumbled in a big way. They ended up abusing Fitz law and convinced themselves they were doing it right.

Well now everyone is 'getting used to' the new way of working in Word and they are developing new motor plans and becoming proficient all over again. But that doesn't take away from the fact that it was a mistake in misunderstanding of the actual tools that Microsoft were using. They will not admit this and people will go on and nothing was actually learned from the whole thing. Yet it happened.

So I think it is a grave mistake for Apple to remove or hide Save As… and to enforce the idea of behind the scenes automatic saving and it is still going to happen and people will out live and replace those of us that prefer to work that way. They will develop a new way of working and who knows if it will be better or worse in the long run. More intuitive or less. People adapt. 

But computers are becoming more intuitive and easy to use. People are becoming more comfortable with interacting with them. People are adapting in positive ways and more so than ever before.

I do not feel qualified to predict if it is for the best or not. I don't know best. Yet I do know that some things are wrong. Somethings just don't feel right. And breaking up years of well established motor plans is a terrible way to go about it either way.

Just my experience and nothing more.


-- Tom McGrath III
http://lazyriver.on-rev.com
3mcgrath at comcast.net

On Jul 31, 2012, at 8:14 PM, Dar Scott wrote:

> I think your summary hits the nail on the head.  "They think they know best."
> 
> We are living in times where there is a common thinking that life--at both societal and individual levels--should be engineered by experts.  
> 
> I don't want to get caught up in that.  When I reflect on my own designs I hope they result in good guidance and simplicity but include a richness that allows a market place of styles.  Do my designs reflect caring, respect, and humility?  I'm pretty weird when it comes to the right way to do things and I don't want that to become preachy.  
> 
> Dar
> 
> 
> 
> On Jul 31, 2012, at 5:42 PM, Scott Rossi wrote:
> 
>> I like this thread (and will try to keep opinions short...).
>> 
>> IMO, long term, I don't think the OS developers care about legacy/power
>> users -- as you say, they think they know best. 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Scott Rossi
>> Creative Director
>> Tactile Media, UX Design
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Recently, Chipp Walters wrote:
>> 
>>> I was talking with Chris about this base on:
>>> 
>>> 1) Mountain Lion now tries to do automatic tasks, like download stuff when
>>> the lid is closed and you're on battery power, thus killing your battery
>>> without you knowing. And now with Gatekeeper complaining about anything you
>>> try and install-- and wt–, iCloud is just amazingly bad. Docs in iCloud now
>>> automatically 'sync' but if you open a Mac doc created on on an iPad, it
>>> will lose formatting, then SYNC, and kill all the formatting from the
>>> original-- and amazingly there's no cloud backup (like DropBox does). And
>>> nope, there's still no "Save As.." because Apple believes they know better
>>> than us when to invoke that command. All in all-- stuff to be wary of.
>>> 
>>> 2) Win 8 is having similar huge issues. They're trying to 'out think' the
>>> users creating all sorts of problems. Reviews for Windows 8 seems to be
>>> more bad than good.
>>> 
>>> 3) We're starting to 'remember' the 'last great version' of programs like
>>> Photoshop, etc..
>>> 
>>> So, I'm wondering... how long before we quit upgrading everything and start
>>> sticking to a single legacy OS and/or programs? For instance, even though I
>>> own the latest version of Flash, I still enjoy using Flash 5 for
>>> diagramming, wireframing and creating 'blueprint roadmaps.' At what point
>>> do the OS'es get so much in the users way that they're no longer good for
>>> us legacy power users?
>>> 
>>> Just wondering... not predicting.. yet.
>> 
>> 
>> 
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