[202] in Athena User Interface
Re: Session mgmt, MOTDs, HOTDs
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)
Wed Jun 21 05:54:19 2000
To: "Christopher D. Beland" <beland@MIT.EDU>
Cc: aui@MIT.EDU
From: tb@MIT.EDU (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)
Date: 21 Jun 2000 05:54:15 -0400
In-Reply-To: "Christopher D. Beland"'s message of "Wed, 21 Jun 2000 05:16:19 -0400"
Message-ID: <u1hitv3we9k.fsf@oliver.mit.edu>
"Christopher D. Beland" <beland@MIT.EDU> writes:
> (About 80% of Athena users who responded to recent surveys report that
> they are comfortable/familiar with the Windows interface.)
This is true, and utterly irrelevant for almost any question.
First, we cannot assume that they are therefore comfortable or
familiar with any particular aspect of the Windows interface one
happens to name. For any particular aspect, it might well be that
just about everyone is unhappy with the way Windows does that, even
though their overall satisfaction rate is high.
Second, the surveys do not ask comparitive questions; many people are
comfortable with eating rice every day as nearly their only source of
calories. It does not therefore follow that they will turn down
anything that is not rice.
Third, a person may be comfortable with a thing, and still earnestly
yearn for something better.
It is useful to hear what Windows does in particular errors if it
helps our design. But we should evaluate such design aspects on their
own merits, and not on deceptive survey questions.
Thomas
