[211] in Athena User Interface
Re: Session mgmt, MOTDs, HOTDs
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)
Wed Jun 21 12:09:17 2000
To: Bill Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
Cc: aui@MIT.EDU, "Christopher D. Beland" <beland@MIT.EDU>
From: tb@MIT.EDU (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)
Date: 21 Jun 2000 12:09:11 -0400
In-Reply-To: Bill Cattey's message of "Wed, 21 Jun 2000 12:00:37 -0400 (EDT)"
Message-ID: <u1hitv3c8yg.fsf@pusey.mit.edu>
Bill Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU> writes:
> Excerpts from mail: 21-Jun-100 Re: Session mgmt, MOTDs, HOTDsThomas
> Bushnell, BSG@MIT (1091)
>
> > > (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.
>
> I disagree.
So I spent time to think about it and give more than a one line
answer; I gave three ways in which the statistic is prone to cause
errors and likely to lead one to the wrong conclusions. I learned
what I said there from "How To Lie With Statistics", and I'd
appreciate more consideration of what I wrote than just one line...
> My thinking is: We should take note of these sound-byte statistics, and
> try and do a good job addressing people's perception of what is good.
So we should take note of them, and some statistics might say
something, but merely garnering statistics is not a very useful
activity, especially if they are like the one that Beland quoted,
which I still think is essentially useless. If you could give a way
you think it's useful, that would be great, but all you seem to say
here is "We should take note of them".
