bill@inteloc.UUCP (09/13/84)
In my experiences, the deepest problems in maling a user-friendly system
is not the wide variety of users, but the variability of the individual. Many
users wish the program to hold their hands at the outset of the learning
process, prompt them nicely in the middle, and mind its own business once they
really get to know what they're doing. "Verbose", "Brief", and "Silent" modes
of conversation can alleviate most of these complaints, but there remains a
significant minority who expect the program to analyze the general quantity and
quality of their errors and respond accordingly. I must admit that I have little
patience with a non-interactive program which gives my 50 copies of a given
message when I have made the same mistake 50 times in a given batch-style run.
Note, however, that the operating system must handle all of the messages and
analysis, costing the user a proportional amount of performance. Yucko. Most of
the persons with whom I've worked would like a tutorial mode (backed up by a set
of manuals written in English) and a standard prompting mode that can be shut
off for the macho (experienced) user.
--
T.F.Prune (Bill Wickart) {allegra | ihnp4 | tektronix} !ogcvax!inteloa
-- "Operator, trace this call and tell me where I am"hawk@oliven.UUCP (Rick) (09/17/84)
I got 250 errors from one line on a PR1ME FORTRAN 77 compiler last summer . . . I was initializing a 250 element array with an implied loop. Of course, after ine errors in a subroutine, the compiler bombs out. rick -- [hplabs|zehntel|fortune|ios|tolerant|allegra|tymix]!oliveb!oliven!hawk