sean@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Sean P. Nolan) (08/08/89)
Jeeeeeez!
I dislike the Information Nazis as much as the next guy, but let's not go
overboard with this unlimited access business. Atkinson put the access
restriction features in for a reason: "I've gone to great lengths to hide some
of the power in the early stages. It's like prerequisites for courses in
college. In the same way, I hope that beginners can come into this with the
idea of, "Well, I can just click to browse around, and I can click and type to
add cards," and then they can use it right away." etc. etc.
When you are creating a program/stack for an audience, you have to keep their
needs/wants/etc. in mind. For example, I'm writing a stack for incoming
freshmen to use when they first get to school. They'll have just received their
Macs, and won't know much more than pointing and clicking. So you hide the
extra power from them until they can use it and "handle" it. Once they have
a grasp of Hypercard, it's simple enough to hit command-space to show the menu,
etc. But when they just want to know where to go during Orientation week,
having the whole menu available would be confusing. The same type of argument
goes for creating a Purchase Order stack for use by semi-computer-literate
secretaries at a company, as an example.
The Mac was intended to be a tool for people who weren't "techies" ... it is
our responsibility as programmers to ensure that it remains that. This creates
a tension --- "Information Nazism" vs. Program Usefulness. The best resolution
to the tension seems to be Atkinson's approach of "make it all available, but
a little at a time." And since we can't expect novice users to accurately
set the UserLevel according to their own ability OUR PARTICULAR STACK, we must
introduce that sort of ratcheting up process on our own.
--- Sean
Sean_Nolan@Mac.Dartmouth.EDU
Hinman Box 2658; Hanover, NH 03755sirkm@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Greg Anderson) (08/08/89)
In article <14906@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> sean@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Sean P. Nolan) writes: >Jeeeeeez! > >I dislike the Information Nazis as much as the next guy, but let's not go >overboard with this unlimited access business. Unless you're writing stacks that contain classified information (not a good use for HyperCard), you can't go overboard with "this unlimited access business." >Atkinson put the access >restriction features in for a reason: "I've gone to great lengths to hide some >of the power in the early stages. It's like prerequisites for courses in >college. In the same way, I hope that beginners can come into this with the >idea of, "Well, I can just click to browse around, and I can click and type to >add cards," and then they can use it right away." etc. etc. Yes, exactly. Userlevels below "scripting" should only be used for the benefit of semi-computer-illiterate or computer-inexperienced users. If your STACK changes the userLevel, you are assuming that all of your stack users are computer-illiterate. >When you are creating a program/stack for an audience, you have to keep their >needs/wants/etc. in mind. For example, I'm writing a stack for incoming >freshmen to use when they first get to school. They'll have just received their >Macs, and won't know much more than pointing and clicking. So you hide the >extra power from them until they can use it and "handle" it. Again, I agree. But you should hide the extra power by setting the userLevel to Browsing by clicking on the appropriate radio button in the Home stack. >Once they have >a grasp of Hypercard, it's simple enough to hit command-space to show the menu, >etc. But when they just want to know where to go during Orientation week, >having the whole menu available would be confusing. I couldn't disagree more strongly. The menubar has useful options in it like "Go Home". Beginning users should be exposed to things like this. The menubar is an integral part of the Macintosh user interface. It is silly to assume that beginning users will not need to know how to use it. >The same type of argument >goes for creating a Purchase Order stack for use by semi-computer-literate >secretaries at a company, as an example. Of course--and you can still set the userLevel to browsing in the Home stack. >The Mac was intended to be a tool for people who weren't "techies" ... it is >our responsibility as programmers to ensure that it remains that. This creates >a tension --- "Information Nazism" vs. Program Usefulness. The best resolution >to the tension seems to be Atkinson's approach of "make it all available, but >a little at a time." And since we can't expect novice users to accurately >set the UserLevel according to their own ability OUR PARTICULAR STACK, we must >introduce that sort of ratcheting up process on our own. > >--- Sean > Sean_Nolan@Mac.Dartmouth.EDU > Hinman Box 2658; Hanover, NH 03755 If you set the userLevel within your stack, you are not making it available a little bit at a time. Novices will be happy in browsing mode, but intermediate users will be annoyed at being unable to get out of it. More advanced users will simply set the userLevel to 5 and grumble at you a bit. In short, it is the purpose of the Home stack to configure HyperCard to the preferences of the user. Individual stacks should assume that all preferences set in the home stack have been set correctly. Doing so makes your stack no less useful. ___\ /___ Greg Anderson ___\ /___ \ \ / / Social Sciences Computing \ \ / / \ /\/\ / University of California, Santa Cruz \ /\/\ / \/ \/ sirkm@ssyx.ucsc.edu \/ \/
sean@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Sean P. Nolan) (08/10/89)
3 Points:
(1) When you create an application, you design the user interface to provide
easy, complete access to the information in question. Providing *A* menubar
is a good idea --- it IS part of the Mac interface. But providing A menubar
is different from providing the HYPERCARD menubar. For some applications,
choosing "Print Report" is uneccesary (I never could spell that word) and
would, in face, confuse a beginning user. A data-entry or otherwise
inexperienced user has no need to even know he or she is IN Hypercard,
bringing me to my second point.
(2) In order to get people to use your stack in particular -- and computers
in general -- you need to make them simple. Most users want to get a job
done and don't care if you create their application in Hypercard or C++
or Assembler or Elven Runes. Thus, many of these people don't know what
the Home card IS. Expecting them to set their UserLevel properly can be
unwise. We can argue back and forth about whether this is a good thing.
I don't think it is, and would like to see everyone jumping up and down to
use their computers. But sometime we all have to get down from dreamland
and accept reality. By doing that, we'll reach the ideal a lot faster.
(3) To back off a bit, my remarks were really intended more regarding the
than the UserLevel, but I'll stand by them for both cases. The edge in
tomorrow's World will go to those who can take reams and reams of data
and reduce them to knowledge. This knowledge is then useful. If you force
a user, computer-literate or no, to sift through excess information to get
at what he wanted in the first place, you've not done your job. Thus,
until the world is computer-literate and we can depend on people's ability
to understand the computer's full power and USE it, we have to create
applications that will be useful to them.
--- Sean
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Sean P. Nolan | | "Let's face it: |
| Dartmouth College | Net: Sean_Nolan@Mac.Dartmouth.EDU | IBM is no fun." |
| Hinman Box 2658 | MCI Mail: snolan | :::::::::: |
| Hanover, NH 03755 | | John C. Dvorak |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+american@pnet51.cts.com (Jeff Iverson) (08/11/89)
I know Greg Anderson knows it all, but I thought I'd offer an alternative to
questioning a stack developers desire (right?) to change the userlevel and/or
hide the menubar. If it really bothers you, then hunt down and kill the
offending developer (right Greg?). Otherwise, if it only, offends you in a
minor sort of way, change the offensive part and re-release the software under
your own logo (a great way to win friends and make money).
Tell me Greg, I always set the userlevel to 5, because most (if not all) of my
stacks call on features that are not present at the other userlevels. Am I
also in violation of Greg's Guide to Good Stacks?
Curiously Yours,
Jeff
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Jeff Iverson