This one time, at band camp, Erle Pereira wrote: >The acid test for Operating System usability really is in taking a group >of people who has never really used a computer before (read >un-corrupted) and give them a choice. Hard by any means today. Ive been >lucky to experience it though.
I disagree. The acid test for usability is in taking a group of people who have a need use the tool to get real work done, and seeing that they can get that work done as efficiently as possible. Usability is all about how the interface to the tool gets in the way of doing work with the tool. The operating system and the computer are tools for getting real work done. They don't exist for themselves. The hammer wasn't designed by someone who didn't have to bash things into shape. Hammers aren't skinnable. But hammers aren't unified, they come in all different shapes and sizes to fit the requirements of the job at hand. (The rest of your post is very good news though :) -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
