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Date:      Sat, 13 Jul 1996 15:39:25 -0500 (EST)
From:      John Fieber <jfieber@indiana.edu>
To:        Joerg Wunsch <joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de>
Cc:        Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.de>, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD keyboard
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.94.960713151127.18545A-100000@Fieber-John.campusview.indiana.edu>
In-Reply-To: <199607131836.UAA01435@uriah.heep.sax.de>

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On Sat, 13 Jul 1996, J Wunsch wrote:

> 'cause fewer and fewer people know how to use a keyboard.
> 
> That's why kindergarten icon games like winloose have the reputation
> of being ``user-friendly''.

It has nothing to do with typing ability.  It has everything to
do with the basic fact that humans are far better at
recognition than recall.  Recall may be more efficient, but only
comes after a great time investment in memorization.  For
infrequent users, or infrequent tasks, recall will never be as
efficient as recognition.  While a true unix junkie will not fit
the infrequent user category, they will encounter infrequent
tasks.  For those I'd much rather have a visual interface that
facilitates recognition than dig through a bunch of obtuse
documentation.

Unix systems trivialize recognition enabled interfaces, Windows,
and to a greater degree Mac, trivialize recall enabled
interfaces.  A vast majority of the computing market has made it
pretty clear that if a compromise must be made, it will be in
favor of recognition.  It is important enough that people will
put up with cheesy operating systems that crash on a regular
basis if that is the only way to get it.

-john

== jfieber@indiana.edu ===========================================
== http://fallout.campusview.indiana.edu/~jfieber ================




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