Re:Why The New Gmail Sucks
by twistedpair on Monday September 23, 2013 @12:21PM
(#6432018)
That's why you have a well worn checklist you use to start a jetliner. It's complex, so they wrote it down and that's how you do it to make sure you don't miss a step.
Reminds me of when I was showing my mom how to use a new piece of software and she opened a notebook and wrote it down step by step. That's how she starts her airliners. Now if only documentation was not considered an afterthought these days.
I can understand. My mother is her 60s and is now a Ubuntu user, has broadband, uses Skype & Gmail.
It took her a long time to get used to it. It is funny she has never used Microsoft or Apple or other computer before on a long term level. She thought, Windows for example was a very user "unfriendly".
But back to the complexity. I remember when she was learning it was very frustrating both for her and me. I think it is easy, and she didn't. Now the other day there was a post on HN about how to start a Boeing airliner. I at that moment understood what it is like being faced with a new interface with new rules and paradigms. If I had start a commercial aircraft I would start crying too probably.
Then of course every time Google or Ubuntu messes with their interface, it causes her and me (having to re-teach her) considerable stress.
Sometimes I think corporations go through re-design just because they can. Like there is an timer set to go off every 6 months and designers, new bosses, CEOs all see it go ding and say "aha, let's redesign it". Sometimes it doesn't make it better, it just makes it different even if it was already pretty good.