January 3rd, 2007
Who? Me?
Ouch…
Programmers to blame for hard-to-use software
Platt, who has also written nine books for computer professionals, has a message for software developers: "Your. User. Is. Not. You."
People who write software programs value control. The user, on the other hand, just wants something that’s easy to operate.
To illustrate his point, he notes that computer programmers tend to prefer manual transmissions. But not even 15 percent of the cars sold in the United States last year had that feature.
I bought the Honda Accord over the Toyota Camry because Honda would sell me a nicely dressed up Accord with a stick, while Toyota would only sell me the economy version with a stick.
January 3rd, 2007 at 3:59 pm
I guess car manufacturers had better start taking out the radios, air conditioners, intermittent windshield wipers, power locks and windows, and all those other things that car drivers apparently dislike, according to this article’s logic.
And what’s the deal with those extra gears in automatic transmissions? You only need three: forward, backward, and neutral. You can put “park” in there if you want, but only if you take out the hand brake. Who uses both, after all? And don’t even get me started on front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, four-wheel drive…why can’t the car companies just pick what they think is best for us? And all those different paint colors!
It’s so confusing to have choices!