🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1489@umbc3.UMD.EDU> cs374326@umbc3.UMD.EDU (Peter Johansson) writes:
>How much research has actually gone into discovering what Joe Schmoe,
>small and medium sized business owner, wants on his desk?  Does he want
>a gas-plasma-wall-hanging-display unit and an infra-red-input-device?
>I find it very interesting that most of the messages here from developers
>and programmers, and there is NIL in the way of input from the end user.
...
>I'm also curious just what percentage of the end-user computing market
>the graphical interface has captured, and what their opinions of it are.
>After all, these computers *are* for "the rest of us."  I'm certainly not
>saying that computer programmers (read: non-end-users) should be limited
>to 80x24 text screens, it's just that from what I see, it's the programmers
>using the new hypermedia, and the (majority?) of users are left with their
>kludgy operating systems ans displays (?)  This user prefers a nice unix
>$ prompt, emacs, C, TeX (LaTex), and a vt100.  Then again, I'm not making
>millions of $$$ either.

I don't know how much of that kind of research has gone on, but how
might it be done in the first place?  You go around asking people
if they want mice & windows & such?  I don't think that'll work because
you'd get caught in the

	if all you have is a hammer all the world looks like a nail

problem.  That is, right now the common demoninator is an 80x24 screen
that you type commands at.  Oh and it's also PC-DOS, single tasking,
and so forth.

The hammer problem cuts both ways too ... the mouse & windows are not
the be-all-end-all of computer interfaces either.  My favorite example
is all the flight simulator programs we have nowadays.  How in the world
can someone fly an airplane with a keyboard of all things??  Or even worse,
a mouse??  Now, using a joystick is closer but still how to you change
the throttle?  Why by groping around on your keyboard while trying to
concentrate on flying.  Sorry, none of them work -- except maybe for that
one thing that's on display in the local computer store which is a
steering wheel and stuff, but it's hooked to an IBM-PC and I haven't
looked at it.

The thing I like about current workstations is that I've got a huge
screen.  I can easily have more than one thing going on and check on
progress without having to do to much work.  I can easily see huge
portions of whatever I'm working on at the time.

Take a look through the ads in current magazines.  See how all the 
display manufacturers are touting these nifty new 132 column displays?
Someone's buying those things y'know.

There's a number of adages about people not understanding why you'd want
multi-tasking until they get a machine that does it.  Once they get used
to it they don't go back.

I was about to say that it's hard for people who haven't used something
to see usefullness in it, and that eventually innovations trickle down.

BUT ... a core question of computer science & interface design -- how in
the world do you find the best way for someone to do something.  Especially
when that persons job isn't one you do and that person doesn't have the
skill or training to develop his/her own solutions?
-- 
<-- David Herron; an MMDF guy                              <david@ms.uky.edu>
<-- ska: David le casse\*'      {rutgers,uunet}!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET
<-- Now I know how Zonker felt when he graduated ...
<--          Stop!  Wait!  I didn't mean to!