Re: [Fsfe-uk] Newham: Richard Steel speaks (Techworld)

[Alex Hudson]

On Sat, 2004-01-24 at 16:10, MJ Ray wrote:
> One part of it seems to be that they have let themselves be locked in 
> quite severely, with things like non-portable macro-based solutions. 

Is there an alternative? (Proprietary-ness notwithstanding, that is -
this is a similar problem to Chris' RAD problem). My instinct says there
isn't, in so far as I don't know of a portable macro-based solution.

> The apparent claim that people complain about the small UI differences 
> goes against what I've heard from speakers who work on this sort of 
> thing, including netproject and Sun. Of course, it would be good for 
> both of those if people can tolerate small differences. Can anyone 
> point me at good research about this? 

I don't think that would have been investigated directly; you would have
to look at secondary effects like overall change cost variation due to
training provision. Rule of thumb is usually around 10% of total change
spend should be on training (more for complex apps), I would imagine you
could research that, but if there was a certain training sweet-spot that
would only imply small differences are disconcerting.

There is a significant proportion of users who are unable to effectively
use modal interfaces, and tend to not be able to figure out how things
work. I would expect they would be the main source of complaint of any
sort of change, and fits somewhat with my experience (it's basically
impossible to measure the effect, because you cannot have a control, but
the effect (w/sh)ould also extend to the usual software doing something
different, which is definitely something there is some research into -
the "Why is it doing that now?" effect).

Of course, if they're talking about Office vs. OOo, frankly, "small UI
difference" is something of an understatement, given the apps are about
as dissimilar as office apps could be.

> Other than that, it seems that we're progressing along the old phrase: 
> first, they ignore you; then, they fight you; finally, you win.

Netscape is an excellent counterexample, however ;)

Cheers,

Alex.