[4694] in Depressing_Thoughts
Re: whimper
jtidwell@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (jtidwell@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Tue Oct 25 17:53:15 1994
A good rule of thumb in human factors goes something like this: If
you're trying to get users to interact with a system in a certain way,
and if all the yelling and screaming in the world just won't get those
"stupid users" to do the right thing, maybe there's something so basically
wrong with the system's design that you need to look deeper for the
solution.
For instance, if a door handle (to borrow an example from "The Design of
Everyday Things") looks like you're supposed to push it to open the door,
all the "PULL" signs in the world will not stop people from pushing the
darn thing. Solution: change the door handle. Or make the door pullable.
Obviously, yelling and screaming at mailing list recipients will not end
the problem of administrative requests sent to the whole list. I've tried
it, as a list administrator. So have lots of other frustrated people.
So what's a good solution?
Is there a way to have some script look for keywords or other patterns in
a message text, and send it either to the list or to the list-request,
depending on what it finds? (Has anyone tried this?) Is it too non-portable
to even attempt?
