🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <22928@oasys.dt.navy.mil> ruckman@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Christopher Ruckman) writes:

   Okay, you have a good point.  With a little training and a smooth OS,
   anyone should be able to benefit from simple multi-tasking such as background
   printing.  But when I think of multi-tasking, I think of the way *I*
   do multi-tasking:  program editor in a window, Designer modifying a
   WinWord illustration while the compiler crunches away in the background,
   et cetera ad nauseum.  To an experienced user, it's a natural way of working.
   But to a novice who barely knows a mouse from a menu, it's just too
   intimidating.

   I agree that background printing is essential.  But not many people
   need or want the power to have umpteen different programs running at
   once the way I usually do.  Hardware requirements should be scaled accordingly.


I see it mainly as a matter of cost.  If you can't afford the extra
cost for a better (multi-tasking in this case) O/S then most people
can get by quite nicely without it.  But when you say that "it's just
too intimidating", I think you're selling people a little too short.

My girlfriend was pretty much a technophobe only a year ago regarding
PCs.  She teaches children with learning disabilities.  Last summer
she had an opportunity to bring a MAC home for the summer.  She went
through the whole "painful" learning process.  Terrible mouse control,
didn't know what happened to her document, always getting
frustrated...  a whole raft of things.

Anyway, she survived and now feels quite comfortable using the MAC as
well as Windows on my PC.  I set her MAC up to use MultiFinder so now
she has multi-tasking capability after a fashion.  She uses it all the
time and I'm sure she doesn't realize that she is multi-tasking.  For
example, she'll be in MacWrite and want to edit another document but
not be sure where it is.  She'll click the MultiFinder icon and be put
back to the desktop to look for it and then return the same way.  I've
even seen her with more than two applications running simultaneously.

If the interface is transparent enough, even novices can multi-task.
Give the user a chance and he/she might surprise you.

--
*        Peter Klug         *  Peter_Klug@Software.Mitel.COM
*     Mitel Corporation     *  
*  Kanata, Ontario, Canada  *  Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.