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To validate this experiment, you need to perform a similar one and similarly educate the users with regards to how to use a GUI.

I suspect the biggest reason your users had historic problems with GUIs is because no-one had sat down and shown them the same basics that you have with the CLI. Most likely this is because everyone works on the assumptions that "GUIs are easy" and, hence, that no-one needs to be taught how to use them.

For example:
This was opposed to their experiences with GUIs where they were the ones that felt like children pushing buttons at random on control panels.

Clearly, if the users feel like this, then they haven't been shown how to use it. It's not like there's any more randomness to the average GUI than the average CLI.

Your conclusions relating to comparing GUIs and CLIs are unjustified because you don't have equivalent data sets. You're effectively saying X is better than Y based on what you'd observed about X but only heard about Y.

I would ideally like to extend my little trial into a full newbie computing course where I teach the command line first before moving up into GUIs.

To make your experiment valid, you need to gather data with GUIs also taught as the first UI. "Moving up" to a GUI from a CLI destroys any validity of comparing, as the prior CLI knowledge will have an influence (similarly if one were to teach GUI use first and "move on" to a CLI).

I feel that my experiences here show that the CLI provides a far better environment for first-time computer users to find their feet.

They don't, because you haven't performed a comparison at all (let alone a fair one).

I believe it also gives them a better idea of what is actually happening inside their computer.

Nothing in this article suggests evidence to support this belief. A text message saying "You have new mail in <whereever>" is no more indicative of what's going on behind the scenes than a picture of a letter appearing discreetly on the screen.


The biggest strengths GUIs have over CLIs, from a newbie perspective are a) discoverability and b) feedback.

Your conclusion asserting CLIs are more discoverable based on the man pages example, IMHO, very contrived. Users only made those "discoveries" *after* you showing them how, not by finding them themselves. Similarly with regards to "Locations" - which in unix are only in the barest and most zoomed-out top-down perspective grouped by similarity (and definitely not by task).

While I commend your interest and attempt to actually observe and report scientifically, I don't think you can justify your conclusions relating to a CLI and GUI comparison, given you don't have any equivalent data relating to GUIs (at least, not in this article).