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Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!ihnp4!houxm!mhuxi!mhuxl!mhuxm!pyuxi!pyuxnn!pyuxmm!cbdkc1!cbosgd!mark
From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: A good human-factored user interface for postnews
Message-ID: <464@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Oct-83 15:02:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.464
Posted: Fri Oct 21 15:02:44 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Oct-83 17:17:52 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus
Lines: 35

It's generally felt that the current postnews command presents a
very bad user interface.  In particular, the distribution prompt
offers whatever you typed for "newsgroups" as a default distribution, e.g.
	Subject: an important question
	Newsgroups (general): net.general,net.wanted
	Distribution (net.general,net.wanted): 
Since distribution is supposed to be something like "net" (go to the
whole net), "nj" (only go to New Jersey), "btl" (stay within Bell Labs),
or just hitting return (go by the newsgroups), this is confusing.

I'm looking at the possibility of a new user interface which
presents a prompt like this:
	Distribution (world, na, usa, nj, att, btl, ho, local, ?):
where typing "?" would print something like this:
	How widely should your message be distributed?  Choose one of:
	world: every place on Usenet in the whole world (same as "net")
	na: everywhere in North America
	usa: everywhere in the United States
	nj: everywhere in New Jersey
	att: everywhere inside AT&T
	btl: everywhere inside Bell Labs
	ho: within the Holmdel building
	local: just on this machine

It has been suggested that there are too many choices here.  (Obviously
the list of choices will vary depending on where the sender is located.)
One person has suggested that the list should be 7 or fewer choices,
since more than 7 choices confuses people.  He suggests that "usa"
and "na" should not be on the list at all.

Also, comments on the "world" vs "net" choice above would be appreciated,
given that internally it needs to be "net" for upward compatibility,
but the user interface could hide that.

This group is presumably well informed on such issues.  What do you think?