On Fri, 05 Jul 2002 09:11:52 -0700 Chuq Von Rospach <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I think you both did, and didn't. I *have* worked to make my stuff as > easy to use as possible. This is because I want my lists to be > inclusive, not exclusive. Precisely. Approachability and barriers to entry are a significant concern. Ideally joining, leaving, and performing basic operations on a list (eg selecting single message, digest, etc) should be so obvious and simple that a proverbial 95 year old grandmother should be able to easily figure out and do everything she wants to without ever feeling confused or asking a question. We are nowhere even close to meeting that criteria. Some list servers go better than others, but the gap remains huge. > I don't see "use of the list" as a hoop someone has to jump through > before being "allowed" to participate (the classic example of these > todays are the Wikis.. Nice try, flawed design). WikiwWiki's combine three basic concepts: WikiMarkup as a simplified form of HTML, WikiLinking for auto A-REF generation from BunpyCase words and InterWiki links, and the EditThis link. That's two more new things than any new system should have for a reasonable and approachable learning curve, especially since WikiWikis are unusuable until you have grokked all three -- and that doesn't even count having to grok the mental model of how the ad-hoc hypertextual mesh of a WikiWiki works and is productive (typically the biggest and toughest mental bullet for people to swallow) None of which means that WikiWikis are inherently flawed as a technology or tool for use by the great unwashed and the 95yr old grandmother. Its just their UI that is so broken. In many ways WikiWikis are in the same position as list servers of 10 years ago: still in love with their own fiddliness and cultivating and grooming their cognoscenti. I have some ideas as to how to improve this, mostly centered on knocking out having to grok hypertext, but I've yet to roll them out to see how they work in reality. Aside: Zope's ZWiki makes an interesting ad hoc extension of mailing lists. You can subscribe to a ZWiki page, whereupon you will receive, via email, copies of all updates and changes to that page. Any replies you make to those messages are auto-appended to the WikiPage, thus causing a new message to be sent out to all the subscribers with the changes. > I don't want to end up running a bunch of virtual moose lodges full of > 80 year old codgers whining about how the young whippersnappers don't > understand how it used to be...) The normal term for this problem in game design (where it occurs commonly), is "elder games". Once your group stratifies out entrenched experts you're likely in trouble -- what game do they play now, with what, and whom? > You also have to look at WHAT you're teaching. The easier you make the > software, the less time you spend teaching people how to geek that > software, and the more time you can spend on other issues, especially > subjective things like reply formatting and editing issues. If you're > always teaching users to jump through hoops, are they going to be > receptive to other comments, or do you start sounding like a nag? And > do you have time to do it? <nod> If you're going to have a learning curve, minimise it to only those things you actually need and which contribute to your purpose. Adding on other bits just creates artificial and unnecessary barriers. -- J C Lawrence ---------(*) Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. [EMAIL PROTECTED] He lived as a devil, eh? http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/ Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
