On Sat, Jan 22, 2005 at 02:42:46AM +0100, Jens Peter Vilstrup wrote: > On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 17:25:30 -0800, Brad Templeton > > to expiring old recordings, are there others that don't? It is my > > taste but it need not be everybody's. > > IMHO, one should try to mimic the behaviour of retail DVRs.
Actually, there is one reason to do so. When it's a matter of taste, you want to choose your defaults so that they don't surprise the user, unless you deliberately want to surprise them with somethign new and exciting. So yeah, you do it the way everybody else is doing it because it means the fewest surprises, but you offer the chance to do it in the new way you think better too. That's why anybody can get into any car and drive it, nobody argues it would be better to put the clutch on the right and gas on the left, even though it's just a matter of taste or handedness. However, an even better idea when you get a UI that gets complex is to start allowing the import of "profiles" created by people who are more experienced for new users to use. The defaults a system comes with are one such profile. I have always thought the first step of config in a tool that has lots of config should be, "Which of these popular configurations would you like to use as a base?" Myth, for example, would start by saying, "Would you like me to think the way Tivo, Replay, Windows Media Center, or Scientific Atlanta think? Or the way the designers of this program prefer?" Or the way software expert Jarod thinks? And then go from there -- but 90% of users don't have to do a single thing more. Not that it's a short path from here to there.
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