Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!bellcore!rutgers!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!bu-cs!dartvax!eleazar.dartmouth.edu!sean
From: sean@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Sean P. Nolan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: UserLevel Stuff
Message-ID: <14906@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 8 Aug 89 14:29:47 GMT
Sender: news@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU
Reply-To: sean@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Sean P. Nolan)
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 32

Jeeeeeez!

I dislike the Information Nazis as much as the next guy, but let's not go 
overboard with this unlimited access business. Atkinson put the access
restriction features in for a reason: "I've gone to great lengths to hide some
of the power in the early stages. It's like prerequisites for courses in
college. In the same way, I hope that beginners can come into this with the
idea of, "Well, I can just click to browse around, and I can click and type to
add cards," and then they can use it right away." etc. etc.

When you are creating a program/stack for an audience, you have to keep their
needs/wants/etc. in mind. For example, I'm writing a stack for incoming
freshmen to use when they first get to school. They'll have just received their
Macs, and won't know much more than pointing and clicking. So you hide the
extra power from them until they can use it and "handle" it. Once they have
a grasp of Hypercard, it's simple enough to hit command-space to show the menu,
etc. But when they just want to know where to go during Orientation week,
having the whole menu available would be confusing. The same type of argument
goes for creating a Purchase Order stack for use by semi-computer-literate
secretaries at a company, as an example.

The Mac was intended to be a tool for people who weren't "techies" ... it is
our responsibility as programmers to ensure that it remains that. This creates
a tension --- "Information Nazism" vs. Program Usefulness. The best resolution
to the tension seems to be Atkinson's approach of "make it all available, but
a little at a time." And since we can't expect novice users to accurately
set the UserLevel according to their own ability OUR PARTICULAR STACK, we must
introduce that sort of ratcheting up process on our own.

--- Sean
    Sean_Nolan@Mac.Dartmouth.EDU
    Hinman Box 2658; Hanover, NH 03755