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From: Glen Labah on 8 Jul 2010 02:58
In article <i127th$gin$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>,
John McWilliams <jpmcw(a)comcast.net> wrote:

> Michelle Steiner wrote:
> > Mark Morford certainly has a way with words, doesn't he? He's a columnist
> > for the San Francisco Chronicle.
> >
> > <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/07/07/notes070710.DTL
>
> Yes, indeed he does. Was reminded of times with my own Mom, sometimes
> getting frustrated that she just couldn't learn that Cmd-Q quit any app,
> and that any deviation from the alias on the DT to open her mail


Point and click and touch screens really are not that much easier to
learn than the old keyboard only systems. In fact, in many ways they
are more difficult. The advantage of MacOS and Windows is that once you
learn the system, typically every program operates the same (there are
some really awful things out there that digress from the "normal"
methods).

This conversation reminds me a lot of the situation in the early 1980s
when the library system where i lived became the first in that region to
complete get rid of its card catalogs and move to computer database
seaches.

Since we are talking about a fairly large database for the time created
in 1982 or so, everything was on the mainframe and the public just got
dumb terminals. No mice and no touch screens, but each had a keyboard.

The system worked extremely well, without anyone from the library having
to help anyone. The instructions on the screen were quite clear: press
1 to search by author, 2 by title, 3 by category, 4 by keyword, etc. As
long as you could find buttons on the keyboard and press them, you could
use the system.

After about 17 years of faithful service, the library decided it was
time to retire the mainframe and move to a mouse based system. It
wasn't that the machine couldn't work longer, but the regional database
was being merged with that of various other library systems. Since they
all used PC based systems, our smaller and older regional system was the
one that had to be "upgraded" to something newer.

It was an absolute fiasco at first. The old system required virtually
no one to help the public use the computer database because there were
always instructions on the screen to tell people what to do, but the new
system required everyone to know how to use a mouse, how to click in a
text box to enter text, and which button on the mouse to press.

It has gotten a bit better, but the new system still requires a lot more
help from the library staff than the 1982 mainframe system did. Windows
and MacOS just don't have an easy way to make the default screen a
simple multiple choice question like the old mainframe did.

Maybe now with the iPad we can finally one day get to the point where
things are as easy to use as they were in 1982.

--
Please note this e-mail address is a pit of spam due to e-mail address
harvesters on Usenet. Response time to e-mail sent here is slow.
From: AES on 8 Jul 2010 09:35
In article <gl4317-731AF8.23584907072010(a)mx01.eternal-september.org>,
Glen Labah <gl4317(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> This conversation reminds me a lot of the situation in the early 1980s
> when the library system where i lived became the first in that region to
> complete get rid of its card catalogs and move to computer database
> seaches.
>

And that reminds me that about that same time I was a faculty member at
a major university which shall go unnamed (except that it's
geographically contiguous to Palo Alto and Menlo Park, CA) which was
doing the same. As one of my side tasks I was a member of the Library
Committee which provided faculty oversight and input for the university
library, which was going through exactly the same process.

At one of the meetings of this group, at which we were being briefed on
the conversion plans from cards to an online catalog, having a bit of
familiarity with multi-user computer systems and the "bboards" of the
time, I asked if this new keyboard-based online system might allow users
to add (i.e., type in and have the system retain) modest-sized comments
or notes on the electronic records for individual books or other items,
similar to the pencilled notes that I had occasionally encountered on
the paper cards in searching through the existing card catalogs..

Seemed to me this could be, for example, a natural and useful way for
faculty members to share knowledge and pass along notes or suggestions
to colleagues and other readers: "Another good book on this same topic
is Smith and Wilson"; "Conclusions in this book are heavily criticized
by Jones and Cartwright"; etc -- in other words, one of the things
scholars are supposed to do. It would have bee

I can still remember the absolutely horrified looks on the faces of the
library personnel also present at the meeting in response to this
suggestion: Allow just ordinary grubby readers to have _any_ access to
their precious card catalog database, and contaminate it with any
non-librarian-approved outside information? Never! They were really,
truly appalled at the very suggestion.

Today of course we all make daily use of, and heavily count on, the
reviews all sorts of products and topics, in amazon.com, in innumerable
sites like Yelp, and in the Comments sections associated with every
article in essentially every online journal, magazine, or website.
From: Wes Groleau on 8 Jul 2010 15:00
On 07-08-2010 02:58, Glen Labah wrote:
> Point and click and touch screens really are not that much easier to
> learn than the old keyboard only systems. In fact, in many ways they
> are more difficult. ....... fairly large database for the time created
> in 1982 or so, everything was on the mainframe and the public just got
> dumb terminals. No mice and no touch screens, but each had a keyboard.
>
> The system worked extremely well, without anyone from the library having
> to help anyone. The instructions on the screen were quite clear: press
> 1 to search by author, 2 by title, 3 by category, 4 by keyword, etc. As
> long as you could find buttons on the keyboard and press them, you could
> use the system.

That is not just an "old keyboard only system" That is an "old keyboard
only system with very simple operations and complete instructions on
screen at all times"

On the iPad, as long as you can find the icons on the screen
and touch them, you can use the system for its basics. And
there is a far more intuitive relationship between (for example),
“pinch like this” and the visible results than there is between
“Press the button labeled '1'” and having a box appear to type
an author's name. The former requires at worst seeing it happen
once. The latter, judging by your description, requires a verbal
description to be constantly in front of you.

I will agree to a modified version of your first statement:
“Poorly designed point and click and touch screens really
are not that much easier …”

--
Wes Groleau

Review of the article The Overwhelmed Generation in FL Annals
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=1313
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