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From: jeenglis@alcor.usc.edu (Joe English Muffin)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: GA of OPEN LOOK Release 4
Message-ID: <13744@chaph.usc.edu>
Date: 18 Dec 90 04:23:00 GMT
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ytsai@attunix.att.COM writes:

>article from der Mouse  <mouse@lightning.McRCIM.McGill.EDU> writes:
>  > Please cut the marketing BS when posting to xpert.

>I'm sorry if you found it inappropriate for this forum, but I simply 
>forwarded a press announcement without any modification.

A press announcement IS inappropriate for xpert and comp.windows.x.


>Some human-factors studies (outside of AT&T and/or USL) showed that
>OPEN LOOK had the highest satisfaction ratings when compared against
>Presentation Manager and Motif.  (The tested population was 50%
>professional, 50% clerical and secretarial). In addition, it took
>people 50% LESS time to learn OPEN LOOK than to learn Presentation
>Manager.  So, indeed, ease of use is frequently a subjective opinion,
>but the claims about OPEN LOOK are backed up by formal human factors
>studies.  What statistically valid studies do you have to back up 
>your opinions?

There is no such thing as a ``statistically valid study'' which
proves anything at all about such subjective factors as ease of
use.  (By the way, what field were the tested professionals in?
It makes a big difference if they were professional programmers or, 
say, marketing professionals.)

Also, ease of learning != ease of use.  I've used Open Look 
applications and olwm (not 4.0, an earlier version) and yes, 
I did figure them out without any difficulty.  But I would MUCH 
rather use twm because I can get it to work however I want it to.
Sure, it's completely unintuitive that clicking control-meta-button1 
inside a window iconifies it, and sure, it took a couple hours
of manual-perusing to figure out how to get it to work that
way, but that kind of functionality and configurability is a very 
important factor when it comes to ease of use.  Maybe not
to the average clerical or marketing type, but it is to
many others.

>  > `Completely' customizable?  I have yet to see *any* GUI, other than the
>  > one I designed and implemented myself, that can be customized to my
>  > taste.  (To pick a simple example: how do I get rid of the title bars?)

>You are correct that the press release overstates the case; an
>OPEN LOOK GUI will constrain user customizability to within the
>OPEN LOOK specification.

Right.  You can change the look and feel to anything you
like, as long as it looks and feels like OPEN LOOK.  And
there's no reason to go outside the OPEN LOOK spec because
it's the easiest to use -- a Reagan Administration study
proved this.  I don't buy it.


--Joe English

  jeenglis@alcor.usc.edu