Dear Readers,
We're excited to bring you, in this issue, develop's first Newton article. Even if
you're not set up for Newton development, you may find this article of interest. But
it's the article on zooming windows that inspired this editorial. The subject is user
interface annoyances: those cases where the application doesn't quite do what the user
expects it to -- as when a window zooms to an odd location -- and the user has to
adjust for it. So what's the big deal? Well, it all adds up. Over time, the harm to the
user from compensating for these problems can be physical as well as mental. You'll
end up with a customer who is suffering in more ways than one.
As Joan Stigliani puts it in her forthcoming book, High-Tech Health: The Computer
User's Survival Guide: "Software can make you work hard and contribute to overuse if
it requires a lot of mouse use -- clicking and dragging, scrolling, moving the cursor
back and forth across the screen -- or a lot of complex key sequences or excessive
keying. Software that is difficult or frustrating to use can increase stress and tension."
This especially struck a chord with me, since I suffer from tendinitis caused by
excessive keying and mousing. So I'm going to take advantage of this opportunity to vent
my frustration (isn't that what editorials are for?). Mainly, I hope to have at least
some small influence on how you design the interface for your applications in the
future.
Why do so many applications lack common sense? Why, for example, shouldn't Print
or Save work on my frontmost document even if the active window happens to be a
dialog box? Why can't I just type Command-F followed by text to be found rather than
first have to select the text that the application (for some odd reason) didn't choose to
highlight in the Find dialog? Why, even on my two-page monitor, do I have to resize a
teeny window for every piece of e-mail I receive, or read a mere eight lines at a time,
scrolling repeatedly (excessively) to get to the end? Why, when I cut a double-clicked
word and then paste it, do so few applications add spaces intelligently?
The list of user interface superfluities goes on and on; these are only the problems I
encounter most frequently each day. Please, give my hands (and my mind) a break! If I
may make a few suggestions:
These suggestions are based on my own experience as the user manual writer and ad
hoc product manager for the first version of the WriteNow application. John Anderson,
one of the authors of WriteNow, says he thinks interface problems stem from software
being too hard to write (something his next product will address) and from the related
problem of software teams being too large. With many specialized programmers on a
project, no one person focuses on the overall picture well enough to make the requisite
intelligent decisions about the interface. Given a large team, a good product manager
can make all the difference in the world. Look for someone both knowledgeable about
the market and able to grasp the technical issues. As I noted about technical writing in
an earlier editorial, product management isn't a job that just any smart person can do,
or that CEOs or VPs should tackle in their spare time.
So I guess the moral is that more is not always better -- not when it comes to features
in an application or programmers on a project, and certainly not when it comes to
keystrokes and mouse clicks in an interface. Please, keep it clean.
Caroline Rose Editor
CAROLINE ROSE (AppleLink CROSE) started writing and programming at a company
called Tymshare, where she thought at first that the terminal was the computer. (She
was stunned to learn it occupied a huge room in another building.) By the time
computers were the size of terminals, Caroline was on her way to Apple to write
Inside Macintosh. She digressed to spend five years at NeXT, where she managed the
Publications group, but returned to the Apple fold to edit develop. Caroline owes her
love of the printed word to her father, who worked for the New York Daily News for
over 50 years. There was no greater thrill as a child than to go to the office with him
and see the copy desks, darkrooms, printing presses -- and, of course, the editors.
She'd like to take this opportunity to say thanks, Dad, and Happy 85th Birthday!*
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