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Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!utcsstat!laura
From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Reply to "Are we designing for the users...?"
Message-ID: <938@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 22-Aug-83 21:03:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.938
Posted: Mon Aug 22 21:03:19 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Aug-83 23:18:40 EDT
References: <2049@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 16

There are novices, and then there are casual users. Novices are
people who have never learned to use X. Casual users are people
who use X this month, and then go away and don't use then for
3 or 4 months, and then go back and use it again -- and so on.

I believe that novices have an extremely short lifetime, so designing
for them is silly. As soon as they have used whatever for 2 weeks (and
in some cases shorter) they may not be expert programmers, but they
are not novices any more.

Casual users are a different matter altogether. 

comments?

laura creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura