Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!dartvax!eleazar.dartmouth.edu!merchant
From: merchant@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Peter Merchant)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Apple Gets Greedier (Read it and Weep!)
Message-ID: <10093@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 16 Sep 88 14:38:03 GMT
References: <68111@sun.uucp> <1253@aucs.UUCP>
Sender: news@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU
Reply-To: Peter.G.Merchant@dartmouth.edu (Peter Merchant)
Distribution: na
Organization: U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, NY
Lines: 30

In article <1253@aucs.UUCP> peter@aucs.UUCP (Peter Steele) writes:
>Part of my job is to train faculty and staff to use their
>machines, and although the Mac is generally easier to use, from my
>experience it takes just about as long to train a computer-illiterate
>user how to use a Mac as it does a PC. There are things that a basic
>Mac can do a lot easier and cleaner than a PC (fonts and graphics), but
>95% of our users don't usually need those features (or at least can get
>along without them).

Hm.  I find that the difference between our Macintosh and PC users is,
primarily, how much support they need after the initial contact.  On a PC, I
am constantly getting questions that usually contain the phrase, "I did this
once but I forgot how to do it and I don't want to look in the manual."  I
don't usually spend as much time dealing with the Macintosh users.

Second, I find that, now that I have fonts and graphics, I can't live without
them.  This summer, I was working for IBM and needed to make a little write-up
on how to work the IBM PS/2 Model 30.  So I sat down and drew a Model 30 with
MacDraw II and wrote the prose with Microsoft Word and pasted the pictures
into Word and printed it on the LaserWriter and it looked great!  Then, I
figured out that I probably shouldn't make IBM promos on the Macintosh, so I
sat down and wrote up my instructions on the PC.  It seemed amazingly archaic
to go back to writing with only one font and one size and not being to make
any drawings to make things clearer.

I've found that if you give people features and the features are easy to
access, they'll use them.
---
"Don't let me be alone..."           Peter Merchant (merchant@eleazar.UUCP)
                                           (Peter.G.Merchant@dartmouth.edu)