From: Rui Miguel Seabra (rms@1407.org)
Date: Fri Oct 18 2002 - 12:27:42 EDT
On Fri, 2002-10-18 at 16:24, Paul Rohr wrote:
> At 11:24 AM 10/18/02 +0100, Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
> >On Fri, 2002-10-18 at 02:29, Paul Rohr wrote:
> > > Hmm. If both Word and WordPerfect work this way, shouldn't we? That
> > covers
> > > 99+ percent of the word processor users on the planet, no?
> >Yes it does cover. But that is definitely a confusing behaviour (it's
> >bitten my 4r53 quite a few times). Should we propagate the errors or fix
> >them (thus gaining yet another advantage point)?
>
> I acknowledge that there are people on this list who don't like the current
> behavior. Indeed, in the abstract, the proposed alternative might make more
> sense.
Not might. It just makes sense and it just works.
> The reality, though, is that literally **hundreds of millions** of people
> are used to the other behavior. Good, bad, or indifferent -- that's what
> they expect when they sit down with any product that calls itself a word
> processor.
People are not used to that other behaviour... people are frustrated at
that other behaviour, but completely powerless to do any other thing
than *sigh* and live with it.
> Like it or not, that behavior is an established standard for the product
> category we're in.
I think that it is an established frustration for people. I can't stop
thinking about the complication that it is for my mother to use MS Word
with all its usability bugs and inconsistencies.
Normal people are afraid (and rightly so) of computers. Why? Because
they are hard to use. Most act like trained monkeys as a defense against
the attack the UI inflicts upon them. They memorize that they have to
click in this icon in that area of the screen and lo and below there is
the word processor. Remove the icon... they sob to tears (even though
they are more than apt to look at the main system menu and locate the
app by themselves).
> motto -- you tell all those users they're wrong, I'm not gonna :-)
Don't be so pessimistic. I propose a new motto for ya:
motto -- Let's show all those users how AbiWord is better.
Hugs, Rui
-- + No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown + Whatever you do will be insignificant, | but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi + So let's do it...?
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