ideas worth stealingKermit Learns Windows
Found this in a used bookstore a couple of weekends ago. Classic.
It uses Muppets characters to teach children Windows concepts five years before Windows 98 appeared, back when Microsoft was first starting to leverage many of the problematic paradigms that still exist today. Here’s a quote:
“Double-clicking is tricky. But don’t worry - you’ll get the hang of it! If a new window doesn’t appear when you double-click, try again. If a menu pops up, just click once on the first choice in the menu … the word Restore. You just learned another way to open a group window.”
The notion of group windows. Using Restore to open a window. Using a menu if double-clicking doesn’t work.
The problem that still exists today is that operating systems are designed for people older than 18 and younger than 50, who are apparently just like the heroes you see in movies who can immediately crack open and use a foreign computer system with little to no effort.
To use Windows (or any modern OS, for that matter), you need to know what Restore means, how to double-click, the fact that you need to double-click at all, what an application is, how to save and retrieve files, and on and on. But many people are never shown this. Many people simply dive in and start guessing, eventually becoming decent satisficers. Which, of course, leads to the incredibly fuzzy mental models and lack of understanding many users have.
In other words, computers assume a lot. They assume you will be able to read their proverbial minds and understand what they want from you. This is the reason we all have so many problems with them. (C’mon - admit it. You have problems with them, too.)
Yet somehow, the people that develop these systems - and that may include you - assume that users will be able to do exactly that. Read the system’s mind. Understand what it wants.
Perhaps you’re planning to have Kermit teach people to use your system as well?
Posted by Robert on March 14th, 2007
3 comments
Some aspects of GUIs are due to technical features (e.g., applications), but some are about user efficiency. I think long ago we long ago decided to trade learnability for power, not that the two are always mutually exclusive, but at the very least it takes a lot of creativity to have both. Learnabilty relies on leveraging users’ heuristics such as thinking by analogy or proximity. For example, a more “intuitive” way to open a file using the desktop metaphor would be to pick it up from a virtual file cabinet and put it on the desktop. But that’s slow, so we have double-click. There’s nothing intuitive about the mouse. It was chosen because it had the best speed-accuracy tradeoff.
So we have this foreign language called GUI. What concerns me is that the training materials I have seen (like Kermit’s book, it would seem) do nothing to teach the structure of the language to ensure users form the right mental model. Instead they provide cook-book recipes for actions that are apparently supposed to be learned by rote memorization: to do A, use this menu; to do B, use the toolbar; to do C, drag and drop over here. Then a new version comes out, and the user has to start over. Without an understanding of the underlying logic, a GUI is little better than command line.
Does the training ever explain that double-clicking means “do the usual with this”? Does it explain the difference between a representation of an object and an action? Does it define what sort of things are under File, Edit and View? These are knowledge we experts have that make it possible for us to sit down at an app we never used before and make it work. But unless you witnessed the evolution of the PC, how do you get this knowledge?
That’s a great point, and it’s one I see a lot with less proficcient users. Most of the training I’ve seen revolves around memorizing task flows, but doesn’t enable learners to form clear mental models based on the concepts put to use in the design. The Kermit book tried to - it explained the every window has a title bar regardless of which app you’re using, and things like that - but it was fairly weak.
Thanks for your comment.
I am in no way saying I know even one tenth of what most of the people using this blog are going to know. Not that I wouldn’t want to know everything, I mean really who wouldn’t want to know everything and I’ve met a few people who really think they do, although, I’ve found most of them are completely full of…..well I’m off topic and you already know anyways.
I remember taking data entry and anything you wanted to know could be done with the /dir command. Well that’s if you could actually understand the 100 lines that would appear as a result. I could then but I think I’ve lost that ability with time. I don’t even think you can dir XP anymore.
I will say I agree though that the middle age groups mentioned are the ones these things are really made for. My father is 73 and I swear he can find any hidden key that will completely whack his computer but can barely check his mail. Then he calls me to ask what he hit. “I don’t know dad, what did you hit?” Seems he has no clue either. Sure his computer can do 18 million things that he has no clue how to open and use. No matter how many times I show him when I leave he’ll whack his computer trying to make it happen for him.
Being a mother myself though, I would love to see the Oscar the Grouch explain haw to run a computer. I’m sure my kids would get a kick out of that too. What a rare find and one that really does stand for an era gone, to an extent. Hold on to that book it just might be worth more than you think.
Sincerely,
Teresa