[Sigia-l] Don't Make me Learn

[Frank Shepard]

*How about URLs? Remember when these first started to appear on the
news, and how difficult it was for anchors to read them without
grimacing? Arguments were made that they would never catch on. (I
suppose they were partially right).

*Also, recycling programs that require multiple bins. These have been
bashed as being too complicated for the average person to bother
adopting.

*Video game controllers.

*E-ticket kiosks.

Frank

On 8/21/07, Ziya Oz <listera at earthlink.net> wrote:
> I posted a splendid example of a junk science/blatant counter-marketing
> effort to broadly label the virtual iPhone virtual keyboard as being
> inferior to physical keypads, by User Centric whose clients include, gasp,
> Motorola and Verizon. I don't mean to rehash the failings of the 'usability
> test' here, but the net result of the FUD campaign was the predictably
> reductionist headlines all over the web like these:
>
> iPhone Touch Keyboard Lags Behind QWERTY
> iPhone Keyboard Much Slower than QWERTY
> iPhone keypad less efficient than physical QWERTY keypads
> Etc.
>
> My goal is to collect examples of technologies (HW/SW) that at first seem
> complicated, almost impossible for the novice until, of course, literally
> hundreds of millions of people do in fact learn to use and then forget what
> the initial fuss was all about. I'm not minimizing the initial climb, but
> simply exploring the fact that this happens *all the time*. Here are just a
> few:
>
> Typing
> Mouse
> Trackpad
> IBM nipple
> Trackball
> Stylus
>
> Double clicking
> Drag and drop
> Menus
> Multi-touch
> Multiple windows
> Online telephony
> Digital media players
>
> Automobiles
> Bicycles
> Most musical instruments
>
>
>
> What else can you think of?
>
> ----
> Ziya
>
> In design, interaction is the last resort.
>
>
>
> ------------
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> April 10-14, 2008, Miami, Florida
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