[ Thanks to Kelly
McNeill for this link. ]
“Companies in the software industry love to claim that their
software is “easy to use”, or “user friendly”. This is to try and
give a sense of security to people who may not know a lot about
computers. In other words, to get the fool to part with his/her
money, and spend it on some software program that they probably
don’t need.”
“So, what does “easy to use” and “user friendly” mean
exactly? That is an interesting question, since both phrases are
extremely ambiguous and subjective. What I consider to be “user
friendly” or “easy to use”, might be horribly complex for the next
person (and vise versa). However, there is something of a
common law definition of what they mean. That definition is that a
person should theoretically be able to sit down in front of a
computer running this software, and even if never having used it
before, should be able to be productive in a minimal amount of
time.”
“Thus, it seems that the point behind “easy to use” software is
to reduce the learning curve as much as possible.”
“Some people take this overboard, and state that there should be
no learning curve at all. However, unless if osmosis is discovered
to work on information, allowing it to seep into the human brain
(of course, if that were true, it would also have to work in
reverse, and might explain a lot), there will always be a learning
curve. You didn’t previously know how to use this program, and thus
had to learn.”