

My Mother Tries an iPhone - chmars
http://rentzsch.tumblr.com/post/45615154468/my-mother-tries-an-iphone

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kunai
I think that rather than dumbing down UIs in favor of general usability (which
is what is suggested here), having a more complex UX with better documentation
is paramount. Dumbing down the user experience does nobody any good, because
as soon as the user (who has gotten used to the simplified interface) sits
down in front of a different interface, he/she will find it extremely
difficult to accomplish anything because of the varying metaphors used.

In this case, the user clearly has a very primordial grasp of computing
metaphors; present the user with an Android or Windows Phone device and she
will clearly be at a loss. The solution isn't pandering to computer
illiteracy, it's solving computer illiteracy in the first place. This kind of
solution seems like something the United States Congress would come up with,
not hackers, who usually opt for the simplest and most effective solution, not
an overly tangled one.

Consistency is what matters most in usability and computing, not intuition and
certainly not ease of initial use.

