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From: db@cbosgd.UUCP (J. Muir)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Friendly user interface?  What friendly user interface?
Message-ID: <2067@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-May-86 12:57:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.2067
Posted: Thu May  1 12:57:46 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 3-May-86 19:06:32 EDT
References: <921@watdragon.UUCP> <4512@dartvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: db@cbosgd.UUCP (D. Bird)
Organization: The Pet Shop, EC1
Lines: 36

Several people have posted comments along the lines of "yes, the shortcuts
are nice, but they should be documented (consistent with menu commands, etc.)"

What is also needed, however, is a way to turn the shortcuts on and off.
(They should probably default to being off.)  Otherwise, naive users (and
not-so-naive users) can accidentally type in a command or option key sequence,
have no idea what they did, and in some cases, are unable to undo whatever
the sequence did.

I've been banging on computers for 15 years now, and still manage to get
screwed up this way, usually as a result of having just typed on another
keyboard of a different size and/or layout.  In most of the software I
use, there's usually no harm done, but I wouldn't expect less experienced
people to be able to recognize that or recover from such mistakes.

The "shortcut switch" could be implemented a number of ways, among them:

o Yet another parameter in the non-volatile RAM, with control panel access

o A per-application switch, say in the File or Control menu, whatever's
  appropriate.

The second approach has the advantage of allowing different levels of
expertise for different programs and doesn't require the basic surgery
that the first one might.  The setting of the switch would have to be
non-volatile for it to be very useful, however (one thing I hate about
some of the game programs I have is having to set a bunch of options
every time I start them up -- yuk!).

I seem to recall having read an article in ACM Communications (or another
equally learned journal) several years ago on designing text editor
command sets for both naive users and experts.  I remember the article
suggesting something similar to the approach I've outlined above, so I
don't think the "shortcut switch" would be a very controversial idea.

Dave Bursik/..cbosgd!db