> "If you were designing a ui for somebody who had never touched a > computer, where would you start to best meet their needs ?"
Now, being "beginner friendly" is in my opinion COMPLETELY different from being "user friendly". User friendly means that a user shall easily find the functions they look for, and that they know exist. Also, common tasks shall be easy to perform. Imagine working in a text editor where you would always have to first choose "select" in a menu to be able to select text. Then choose "copy" in a menu, move the cursor and select "paste" in a menu. And finally go back to the selection, select it (using that same menu again, and trying to remember how much you selected before) and the choose "delete" in a menu. Is that user friendly? It is VERY beginner friendly, since all commands are in menus (thus you do not need to know that the command exists) and commands only do ONE thing. You do not have to learn that you select text keeping shift depressed or that you can "cut" and "paste", and you don't have to learn the functions of the different "special keys" on the keyboard. To make a good user friendly interface you normally need statistics about which actions people do most. /Peter
