[TYPO3-hci] The Paradox of Choice

[Lasse Norby]

Hi Susanne

Susanne Moog wrote:

> If your client wants an easy to use content management system it doesn't 
> necessarily mean that the cms should be easy to use out of the box but 
> that you have to restrict the features fitting for your customers needs 
> and knowledge.

OK.. As far as I can tell from reading other posts on this list, maybe 3 
of 10 actually takes the time to do this, because this in itself is a 
very cumbersome and difficult process.
Why not reverse this, so that it's easy to use out of the box, and then 
add features etc if need be?
Maybe I'm wrong on this?

> 
> As you said in the end of your post I think it is not necessary to dumb 
> any features in Typo3 but it would be an improvement if there were 
> smarter ways to hide them.

yeah..

> Could you give an example on where Typo3 doesn't behave like expected? 
> Sorry, I don't get what you mean here.

Well, Mie and Maya can give you some: 
http://wiki.typo3.org/index.php/Usability_Discoveries
and there would be plenty more if we interview Mie and Maya's friends.
I could also give you some, but I've already been polluted so my voice 
doesn't count in this.

> Arg. OpenOffice and MS Word have a quite good spell checker, I don't 
> want to say anything against that - BUT! it doesn't and cannot find 
> every mistake you make especially not the grammatical ones and I think 
> everyone should be able to write at least a letter to his or her 
> grandmother without making mistakes. Day by day I see mistakes being 
> made that could be avoided if the author of those texts just had thought 
> a minute instead of leaving the thinking to his computer.

Granted! And I'm not saying that we should stop educating our youngsters 
in grammar and spelling and math etc. The point I was trying to make is 
that if we measure some of the other skills our youngsters have, they 
are far superior than 20 - 30 years ago, and we cannot expect them to 
learn all the same skills as learned 20 - 30 years ago, while learning 
the skills required in today's society. That's all.. :-)

> 
> With the same argument you could banish math lessons as your computer 
> and your calculator are perfectly able to solve your arithmetic problems.

No I couldn't. I would still need to know HOW to solve my arithmetic 
problems and WHY. I just don't need to know what 248*65/421 is 
beforehand. This is a job for my calculator, and I'm pretty skilled 
using it.

>> Today it's a skill to find information on the web - quick.
> But nearly noone still has the skill to find information without it - 
> quick as was possible thirty years ago with a library.

No, but is this needed?? I bet ya that I can find information 20x faster 
on the web, than my mom can i a library. I'm not saying that we should 
burn the books, but if we need "quick" information - the web is 
definitely the way to go.
Well, if the web collapses and disappears we have a problem.

>> It's a skill to be able to "network".
> That was a skill 20 or 30 years ago, too. It just wasn't called fancy 
> networking and you didn't need your computer to do it.
> 
>> It's a skill to be able to keep many balls in the air - at once.
> There are more people with this skill today as 20 years ago? Interesting.
>

True.. bad examples... my bad..

>> It's evolution baby! And evolution doesn't care how you spell! It just 
>> want to see results!
> I'm quite sure the evolution itself doesn't care how I spell, but it 
> doesn't care how I network either.

Well I think it does, cause this is an important skill today. 20 - 30 
years ago it cared very much about spelling.

> 
> Regards,
> 
> Susanne

Cheers!
Lasse