Linked by David Adams on Mon 15th Oct 2001 02:23 UTC
OS News' review of Mac OS X last week certainly stirred up controversy, partially because some die hard Mac fans perceived that it was improper for an outsider (someone who is not an everyday Mac user) to me making broad criticisms after only a superficial introduction to the New operating system. Well, folks, that's why they call it a review. We thought that Apple's major new OS also deserved a road test, and there were two very important events in Mac OS X history just a few days ago that toppled the last major obstacle to making it ready for millions of Mac users to start using it as their everyday OS: the 10.1 release and the release of Microsoft Office X. Last week, I made the switch and started using Mac OS X as my everyday OS. Here's how it went:
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I said my mother had problems with her iBook due to the context-switching. I said she was a computer-phobe. She is. That's why I recommended a Mac in the first place. She has trouble keeping in mind what the difference between a hard drive and RAM is. The problem is NOT that she is a "Windows user." The problem is that she is not a computer user, period. Having one menubar whose menus and functions shift based on context changes is no more intuitive to a technophobe than the Windows-ism of putting "Shut down..." in a menu that pops out when you press a button labelled "Start." Both violate the principle of least surprise. Get over yourself. If you're a CS instructor, great! I'm a software engineer whose job involves user interface design. I'm not going to claim that makes me more qualified to criticize user interfaces, but I'm going to claim it doesn't make me any less qualified. The good folks at the Nielsen Norman Group might not agree with all of my views (and vice-versa), but it's worth noting that most of them have criticized OS X's UI as being at the least uninnovative and at the worst a step backward from MacOS 9. (And if you've never heard of NN/g, then I *am* more qualified to criticize user interfaces than you are.)