Trip Report: GNOME UI Hackfest

[C. Scott Ananian]

On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 3:12 PM, Erik Garrison <erik at laptop.org> wrote:
> Are we sure that we can generalize these observations to younger users?
[...]
> I am seeking an equivalent review of the user interface issues affecting young users.  Can anyone find one?

Our feedback from younger users has not been inconsistent.

In particular, David's hope in Largo (he's been doing this for 20+
years) was that once the current younger generation started entering
the workforce, they would have been exposed to files-and-folders and
all the rest of the standard UI paradigm from birth and thus his "I
can't find my file" problems would dissipate.  This has not been the
case.  Even the twenty-year-olds straight from college can't find
their files, put everything on the Desktop (or wherever the default
place is).  Frederico's experience described at
  http://www.gnome.org/~federico/docs/2008-GUADEC/html/index.html
is the same.

You could make some argument that 6-year olds can work computers in a
fundamentally different way, but then you'd have to explain how they
lose that ability by the time they turn twenty.
 --scott

-- 
                         ( http://cscott.net/ )