[plt-scheme] Re: fafebook

ebellani at gmail.com writes:

>> Why should the first one always work, and the second one not? Search is so ubiquitous now that people don't even know when they're searching and when they're not .
>
> Agreed. The people in this site probably have jobs, raised healthy kids, drive around, operate a TV set.
> I mean, how can they make a phone call, operate a TV and be 'stupid' on the internet? It is because they are failing
> in using common cognitive frameworks to present their messages, or to create a usable one.
>
> Usually those things are a design issue, not one of user intelligence.

I'd say it's more of an issue of user _knowledge,_ rather than
intelligence.  This issue reminds me of a discussion I read some time
ago about executives at a major Wall Street trading firm who always
opened a file in Microsoft Word by going to the "File" menu and
selecting an entry from the list of most recently opened documents,
without ever knowing that they were dealing with files.  When the
document that they needed then dropped out of the list, they were unable
to find the document by themselves, and then called the IT department,
not knowing that the document was actually a file stored in their "My
Documents" folder.

These people weren't lacking in intelligence; they were lacking in
knowledge.  Specifically, they had no concept of a "file."

Changing the design might solve this problem for one application, but
how about for others?  Which is easier:  changing the design for all
applications, or teaching them the concept of a "file?"

For the Facebook login example, which is easier:  changing the design
for all social networking sites, or teaching users the difference
between a "search" and a "URL?"

-- Benjamin L. Russell
-- 
Benjamin L. Russell  /   DekuDekuplex at Yahoo dot com
http://dekudekuplex.wordpress.com/
Translator/Interpreter / Mobile:  +011 81 80-3603-6725
"Furuike ya, kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto." -- Matsuo Basho^