Re: Useful Dumb User Questions
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg9051] Re: Useful Dumb User Questions
- From: crose at c2.telstra-mm.net.au (Colin Rose)
- Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 01:42:30 -0400
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
> I recall reading that Microsoft has a policy of taking computer novices > off the street, sitting them down in front of Windows, and asking them > to perform certain tasks on the computer. Microsoft monitors carefully > all the mistakes made by these novice users, in order to find out how > Windows could be made more intuitive. That is the kind of analysis I am > calling for here. > > Maybe such analysis is only appropriate for WRI personnel I sure hope not. I hardly think the unbelievably clunky Windows interface (and 10 years late) is a suitable metaphor. > Among other things, Mathematica is still a > command-line-driven program in an age of graphical user interfaces. > Palettes and the like are a helpful step. That's a little unfair. The Plot[] interface could certainly do with a neat interactive front-end, but the underlying functions are both too numerous and too integrated into what is ultimately a programming language to be treated as graphical or menu objects. Even so, almost all the mma functions are now available through the palettes. Cheerio Colin -- Colin Rose tr(I) - Theoretical Research Institute ______________________________________ NOSPAMcrose at c2.telstra-mm.net.au http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/tri/