Fwd: [Contributors] Microsoft Windows Is Offically Broken

[Ian]

Mike McCarty wrote:

> Tim wrote:
>
>> Tim:
>>
>>
>>>> A good GUI shouldn't need documentation, though; it should explain
>>>> itself intuitively, and provide some hints for the more difficult
>>>> bits.
>>>
>>
>>
>> akonstam at trinity.edu
>>
>>
>>> I have an ex-student who made a claim like this recently. His company
>>> produces a product that needs no documentation. It is "intuitively
>>> obvious" he says.
>>> Balderdash. I am still waiting for the program that needs no
>>> documentation.
>>
>>
>>
>> Then it's not a "good GUI".  :-\  I did say a good GUI shouldn't need
>> it, I didn't say all GUIs are good.  A lot are quite crap, like the two
>> examples I gave.
>
>
> ANY significant system needs documentation. I take it that the only
> good GUI is a trivial, useless one, then.
>
>> On the other side of the coin, a lot of non-GUI programs are crap to use
>> for similar reasons:  Unintuitive ways of working, requires
>> documentation to understand how to use them, and the documentation is
>> poor.
>
>
> Nobody has said otherwise, AFAIK.
>
> Mike

You can't make a one size fits all gui. What's intuitive to one person 
might be obscure to someone else. Everybody's expectations are 
different, where you would expect to find Preferences... (assuming they 
are even called that) might be the last place I'd look. Much as I hate 
to say it, that's one thing we have to thank Microsoft for. Windows has 
moulded the expectations of the great unwashed to understand 
"intuitively" how to work PC software. That means the need for 
documentation has perhaps reduced but certainly not eliminated. If a 
piece of software I install doesn't have a help file, it's instant 
deinstall and no correspondence will be entered into.