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Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!peterr
From: peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: studying novices is NOT silly
Message-ID: <2056@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Aug-83 09:52:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.2056
Posted: Tue Aug 23 09:52:16 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Aug-83 14:45:25 EDT
Organization: CSRG, University of Toronto
Lines: 13

I think that many people STAY novices for a very long time, since they are
intimidated by the machine in the first place and don't stick around long
enough to become experts.  Those first few sessions are very important
and I think it makes perfect sense to study novices in that context.  And
they WILL be studied, if only for economic reasons; a system which can make
the user feel comfortable in the first five minutes will sell better than
one which cannot, all other things being equal (which means, largely, that
expert performance should not be compromised).

Casual users are indeed a different matter.  I suppose a good question is,
are they perpetual novices, or are they very slow learning novices becoming
competent?
  p. rowley, U. Toronto, utcsrgv!peterr