Survex

[Andy Waddington on Survey stuff]

Graham Mullan asked

> admit it, how many of you out there on Windoze machines have actually
> sat down and read the manual?

What manual ? Your Windows came with a manual ??? The last MS OS that I have
with a manual is MSDOS 6. My Windows came with a brief "getting started"
guide, which told me precisely nothing which wasn't pretty obvious anyway.
Beyond that, there *are no manuals* - not even pdfs on a CD, as far as I
know. You have to go out and buy independently written books, most of which
are written by helpful people who *know* you will want to do things that MS
don't bother to attract your attention to. They're a great resource, but
they add yet more to the cost of running a Windows system.

[ Aha ! My not-computer-literate wife has just arrived and looked over my
shoulder at the "RTFM" paragraph below and exclaimed "You don't usually get
a f****ing manual with a Windows system - that's part of the problem!"
I rest my case :-) ]

And I have to say, I have bought such books and read them cover to cover -
that's what they are for. Anyone who doesn't read *all* of *every* manual
which came with their system deserves no assistance, sympathy, or to be
allowed to continue using their system!!

He suggests that Windows users typically

> play with [the program] gradually learning how the thing works and
> sometimes using the "help" files

I can honestly say that in all the years I've tried to use Windows programs,
I've never found the answer to something which wasn't pretty obvious anyway
in any of the "help" files. They seem to go out of their way to avoid
telling you what you really wanted and in most cases you simply can't find
out how to do stuff that way.

So the interface expectation of a Windows user is that a program will
install itself, require you reboot the machine six times before it will run,
prevent at least one previously installed piece of software from running,
and is then "intuitive" in that you can get 50% of the functionality without
ever reading the manual which you didn't get anyway. Because the help files
don't, the other 50% of the functionality doesn't trouble these users,
because they never perceive that it is there, so don't worry about how to
use it.

That should be easy for Survex to match - it's just a case of choosing the
particular 50% that is visible. Having a "Run" button that fits expectations
should be easy, as long as it pops up a succession of little prompts asking
if "you really want to {do x,y and z which aren't what you actually asked
it to do} ?"

> Anyone who has asked "How do you do that?" questions in any branch of
> computing will be familiar with the response "RTFM"

And after you've read the manual, or the help, and still have to ask you
get "A google search (which you could have done as easily as I did),
suggests x,y and z". (Thanks, Wookey:)

Andy