[Sigia-l] Don't Make me Learn

[Paola Kathuria]

Ziya Oz wrote:
> 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.

scroll bars (what they are / what they mean)
using styles in MS Word
RSS
changing the cotton reel in a sewing machine
replacing the film in a camera
changing the recipient to someone other than the default reply-to
[h] [j] [k] [l] as movement keys
makefiles
any browser (s/w) upgrade

And areas of confusion:

copying a disk (photocopying a floppy disk)
the idea of an application
the idea that multiple applications can run at the same time
that a browser can be used to open local files
the idea of desktop workspaces
bookmarking anything in a browser
using folders to organise bookmarks
being able to edit the URL in the location box of a browser
clicking on a link on a web page
shift-arrow to select multiple chars/lines of text
the idea of a different O/S besides Windows

I've said in the past that a novice is someone for whom
everything is magic; they haven't a clue how any of it
works and so it might as well be magic. An expert is
someone who knows the difference between what is possible
and what is magic.


Paola
--
http://www.paolability.com/