Striped Background in OS X Revisited

[Björnke von Gierke]

On 28 Jun 2007, at 06:25, J. Landman Gay wrote:

> Scott Kane wrote:
>> The way most Mac users interface with their desktop is very different 
>> to how Windows users do it.
>
> I'm interested in learning more about this, being mostly Mac-oriented 
> myself. Could you (or anyone) sketch out what you see as the 
> differences in behavior and general usage between the platforms?

Developers will tell you their believes, but users will tell you what 
they need. I'd argue you should never ask other developers about their 
UI preferences, but listen very closely to the stories they tell, about 
when the users of their products "didn't get it". Because the user is 
never wrong, it's always the product, and thus the developers (or the 
deadlines) fault.

As an example, one of these silly stories is this:
A user gets told to move the mouse on the screen to the start button, 
and the user lifts up the mouse, and positions it in the corner of the 
screen. Programmers laugh at this behaviour, but it's a prime example 
of diverging knowledge base, and therefore a fault of the product not 
communicating how it works well enough (and also of the instructor 
overestimating the knowledge of the user).

In my experience with "Normal" users, so not programmer, hardcore 
gamers, or OS advocates, the usage does not differ much, if at all.

Users do not understand folders:
These users do not use folders, and do not want to use them. They have 
Office (sometimes just Word), some pre installed browser and the e-Mail 
application on their desktop. If you delete these 
aliases/links/shortcuts, they'll call support.

Users do not understand files:
These users do double click files, and deem them broken if nothing 
happens, or an application chooser pops up. They do not know what makes 
a image file an image file, and they do not know or care for the subtle 
differences between plain text and word documents.

Users do not understand any GUI object:
To the user everything is a file, or a button. So they double click 
everything, or single click everything, resulting in unexpected 
behaviour.

Users use what they have to, but not more:
These users do not want to use the computer, they want to get things 
done. So they write their word documents like with a typewriter: Adding 
spaces to intend, using existing documents as templates, and being 
overwhelmed if these "templates" use invisible settings like document 
wide font defaults that overwrite their own font settings.

So no matter which existing UI paradigm you use, these users will feel 
uncomfortable, and not at home with it. On the other hand, you can sit 
a user in front of a computer, and hold their hand in baby steps for a 
few years (or much more, depending on age). After that, they will get 
used to the GUI they are using, and then only despise other GUI 
approaches, as these other OSes clearly are doing it wrongly.

But of course I am a developer, and you shouldn't listen to me.
Björnke

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