I will grant that the steering wheel is usually where you expect it, and I don’t mean to argue an analogy at too great a length, but I will note that the user interface is “broken” in cars as often as it is in software.

Get into an unfamiliar automobile and quick, find these: windshield wipers, windshield washer, headlight switch, hazard light switch, interior light switch, rear window defroster, and seat adjustment controls. How do you open the wing covering the gas cap? How do you open the trunk? How do you set the dashboard clock to the correct time? Zero out the trip odometer? Which button on the remote unlocks the car? Where, in some extreme cases, is the flipping hole for the ignition key (pet Saab peeve, here)?

And don’t get me started on trying to a new preset on the radio.

(Having caught my breath, I see Richard Schwartz has already said much the same. I’ll submit this anyway, since I know you like the concept of multiple people sharing the same emotion.)

One of the most confusing for many people is the ability accidentally to move toolbars to positions where they can’t be seen. They then have no idea how to get the toolbars back.

Then there is the opposite case you want to move a toolbar and the others skitter around like cockroaches so you can’t get it to do what you want.

Most of the people I meet are pretty clueless where computers are concerned even if they are otherwise very bright. Many seem to have a series of recipies of how to do things with almost no understanding of what is actually happening and no way to broaden their understanding. All those nice metaphors that we design into our software are pretty useless for them. Because they just don’t get it.

Nick

The “nasty” comment to your mom’s difficulty is something like, “The V)iew menu is obviously the right place to look.” Like a site I dealt with today I described as “reticent” … and almost immediately got a blog comment saying “How ”reticent”? The docs are all right there, in the wiki” Yaa.right.ok.fine.whatevuh is all I can say to that!

But to your point, John … and here’s a phrase I heard a lot more mid-80s than I have since: cognitive ergonomics … the foundations of user-centered design. (I like to say that I am for “somewhere between total boredom and helmet-fire.”)

Thanks for pointing that out, I had not heard of it. Nice!

On the car analogy I think the issue of moving functions (such as windscreen wipers) proves the point. As an Australian I had the same issue when driving in the US. I found myself continually looking out the left hand window as it is where you look at the rear view mirror in a right hand drive car.

I assume that these are all related to “muscle memory” where an action is embedded at a subconscious level.

and pluueeeze – pluuueeeze — make the Easy Finder lock the dock so that mom or dad don’t accidentally remove an application from the dock.

even something as wonderful as gMail needs to have a Simplified option that people new to computers can use without getting confused by the interface. you wouldn’t believe how many gMail users at the public library i work at ask me for help finding the Reply button for emails.

phil shapiro

The fundamental problem is that the app’s use cases are often tangled together onto a GUI for the app’s data and events. It’s as if designers implemented the use cases as traces through the GUI then proudly threw away the overlaid traces, called in the tech writer, and left the eventual users to figure out the use cases by intuition and experience, maybe even RTFM upon occasion, but the GUI remains part puzzle. For example, gmail weaves the archive use case through labels, selection links, checked list items, and a combo box selection. In “computational thinking” terms, we have muddled levels of user actions, confusing the search use case with the search box, and interleaving the infrequent archive use case with more frequently used actionsx. If only our app would “tell” us where our use cases were mapped onto the curne GUI…

An advantage of mobile devices are that the use cases are prioritized and streamlined, e.g. so you can buy the book you know you want at Amazon without recommendations, special offers, and more links you don’t need at the moment.

This is the theory of a screen reader newbie who is shocked and sometimes bewildered the complexity of most user interfaces and web services. And everybody should remember they will likely have vision loss if they live long enough. It’s easy to experience this world for a day, turning on high contrast black theme and running with Narrator in Windows.

Jon, what is your opinion on the Microsoft WORD to DAISY book alliance?

Susan “As Your World Changes” http://asyourworldchanges.wordpress.com

Quick, Jon! Where’s the emergency flasher button located in your car? What about your previous car? What about the last rental car you drove? Are the windshield wipers on the left or right stalk? How about the headlights? When’s the last time you sprayed washer fluid on your windshield when you intended to turn on your brights?

They may not wander around in any one car, but they sure do wander around from car to car.

Yes. Cloud-based storage of configuration is a huge opportunity mostly still untapped.

“If anything, there’s lots of stuff I would love to be able to change about how my phone is set up”

Undoubtedly. But you’re probably not the sort of person who would benefit most from the constraints.