Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!jarthur!usc!apple!bionet!agate!shelby!neon!pescadero.Stanford.EDU!philip From: philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: NOT (click to type) in NeXTStep? Message-ID: <1990Nov7.005656.26478@Neon.Stanford.EDU> Date: 7 Nov 90 00:56:56 GMT References: <1990Oct28.165341.6949@cs.cmu.edu> <2955@lectroid.sw.stratus.com>, , purtill@morley.rutgers.edu (Mark Purtill) writes: |> dd26+@andrew.cmu.edu (Douglas F. DeJulio) writes: |> >purtill@morley.rutgers.edu (Mark Purtill) writes: |> >> NeXTStep should provide an OPTION for pointer focus... |> >I can't agree. One of the horrible things about X11 is that it is too |> >customizable. This is bad for several reasons; it's particularly bad |> >for support people. |> I thought a NeXT was supposed to me a machine to make users |> more productive, not support people happier. Being different from |> what I'm used to is *not* going to make me more productive. Forcing |> me to use a fixed interface that someone else likes but that I hate |> will not make me more productive. It may make me buy a Sparc instead |> of a NeXT though, and if enough people do likewise, there won't BE any |> NeXT support people. |> Besides, I don't really see how this would make life more |> difficult for support anyway, unless they want to sit down at my |> machine and type (and point), which is not likely anyway. What are |> the other "several" reasons? |> If you want one more, it forces all users to either become designers or make do with whatever suboptimal setup they inherit from however they got their initial setup from. Look at it this way: a BMW or a Honda has a professionally designed interior. The placing of controls may be a bit different but, because the design is good, you get used to it quickly. Imagine if the switches and controls came packed in a separate box and you had to figure out how to position them optimally. Ergonomics is a difficult subject in car design; it is no easier in human-computer interaction. I'd rather have mildly inconsistent interfaces designed by professionals than be forced to design my own. "Professionals" don't always get these things right of course; that's why there are certain makes of car I wouldn't drive. But this is no argument for demanding total customization. I'm not saying interfaces should not be customizable at all, just that I think there are limits. I really can't see that making the user become a designer is "more productive". -- Philip Machanick philip@pescadero.stanford.edu