The problem here is the same problem we experience with marketing: Write a commercial, news article, or movie with words and concepts that an average citizen can understand, and you rapidly loose everyone under that IQ level. So most media is written at about an 80 IQ, with an occasional sophisticated or enlightened quip to keep the intelligent from shutting you off.
At what range would you place the majority of developers? Certainly above average. If they are just average, their IQ and familiarity spikes in logic and programming.
Asking developers to increase usability is roughly equivalent to asking them to dumb the interface down. That's a big hurdle, but one that's important to broach.
Certainly decent How-To-Make-My-App-User-Friendly tldp's would be useful. But a simplified method for newbies to submit 'I don't understand feature X on version Y' messages to developers or perhaps an intermediary clearing house like bugzilla might yield promising, realtime results.
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Usability for the lowest I.Q.?
Posted by: smurfnsanta on July 10, 2004 02:51 AMAt what range would you place the majority of developers? Certainly above average. If they are just average, their IQ and familiarity spikes in logic and programming.
Asking developers to increase usability is roughly equivalent to asking them to dumb the interface down. That's a big hurdle, but one that's important to broach.
Certainly decent How-To-Make-My-App-User-Friendly tldp's would be useful. But a simplified method for newbies to submit 'I don't understand feature X on version Y' messages to developers or perhaps an intermediary clearing house like bugzilla might yield promising, realtime results.
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