26 Jun
2004
26 Jun
'04
10:09 a.m.
On Sat, 2004-06-26 at 02:36, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
I made the observation that educated people usually do
not mind having
to learn something. So if there is a widespread aversion to having to
learn and read a manual, that seems to indicate that education levels
have gone down.
I have been writing graphical editing software for scientific data
(sonar, magnetics, gravity, lidar) for over 20 years. Everyone that
uses my software has at the very least a BS degree. Many have one or
more MS or PhD degrees. I put context sensitive help in every piece of
software I write. You can click on any graphical object and get *very*
detailed instructions on how to use it and what to use it for. These
people do not have an education problem. Do any of them read the
context sensitive help, much less the documentation (1 button press on
the desktop), that I write? Maybe 1 out of 100. I feel that I have
failed in GUI design if the user has to read documentation for code that
I write. Granted there are advanced things that you can do that you
need to read the context sensitive help for but simple use of the tool
should be self evident. My two cents ;-)
Jan