Re: Wheel mouse/track ball/keyboard/left brain-right brain/zone
It has been said that any technology developed after you're a teenager seems
mysterious. If that were literally true I'd still have an eight-track tape
player...
And I'd be leery of stereophonic sound and zip codes! ;-)
, but I digress 8^) Dick Margulis <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net>
hypothesizes that some users never seem to get the hang of certain GUI
techniques because of right-brain dominance. I propose a different
hypothesis: the differences are age-related. Those of us who learned
computers before GUIs may have a different preferred style of interaction.
...
Nope on both counts. First, I'm ancient. Second, I cut
my computer teeth on Wang minicomputers and CPM PCs.
(little green dots... little green dots...) <g>
Third, I've taken the brain test and consistently
measure less than 5 degrees off top-dead-center to
the left and aft. (if ambidexterous means you can
use both hands, what's the word for being able to
use both sides of the brain? ambicognitive?????)
;-)
My preferred technique for attaching a file to an
e-mail, for example, is to drag the file from explorer
and drop it on the eudora icon on my desktop. I saw an
*engineer* do this once and I liked it; it prevents me
from sending the mail without the attachment.
Likewise, I can edit documents for hours at a time with
naught but the mouse in my hand, rearranging words,
dragging punctuation hither and yon, with only a tap
or two on the keyboard from time to time. But if I'm
actually writing rather than editing, I hate to take my
hands off the keyboard and will use whatever accelerator
keys are available or that I know.
The implication for either DIck's hypothesis or mine is that the way we
document procedures in user's guides is not necessarily helpful to all users.
This is true whether you consider left/right brain
differences or rely on the more classic learning
style classifications (visual, auditory, tactile).
I generally see mouse-and menu-oriented steps in third-party applications.
You really have to pick one method of interaction and stick with it in
documentation... I
suppose this problem might be solved with an XML application, with multiple
parallel paths for all procedures. Maybe the exact way in which you ask for
online help will silently define the path you're sent onto...
While on the surface, it sounds like a users dream,
on our end it could turn into a maintenance nightmare.
And what would the user do if, by some fluke, they
got sent down the wrong path and found the help all
totally useless? Call tech support, I suppose, just
like they do now. <g>
Whether we devise some sophisticated XML application
to guide the user to material that is geared for what
we suppose they want or we provide different kinds of
documentation for different kinds of users (tutorials,
online help, wizards, cue cards...) and let them choose
their own path, it has always been possible, at least in
theory, to accommodate different types of users. Whether
it's feasible or not, of course, is a different story.
But whether you can automate the process using some sort
of XML design, Idunno. For every ten normal, average users
in our target audience, there'll be at least one curve-
skewer like me and any one of at least a hundred other
people on this list who just won't fit whatever mold we
decide to use.
That little ol' curve-skewer,
Sue Gallagher
susanwg -at- ix -dot- netcom -dot- com
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