[OT] "The Condescending UI" (was: Do we need Win95/98/Me support?)

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Walter Bright" <newshound2 at digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:jfje8n$vka$1 at digitalmars.com...
> On 1/23/2012 2:22 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> Although I disagree with phonetic being *necessarily* better than
>> ideographic. I do agree with the benefits of phonetic you describe -
>> essentially "easier to learn". But the benefit of ideographic is that 
>> they
>> can be quicker and easier to use *after* you've learned them.
>
> I find that very difficult to believe. But I don't know Kanji.
>

It's pretty much accepted as standard fact among those who know or have 
learned Japanese (well, at least from what I can tell. Like I said, I'm not 
fluent, and hell I've haven't even been over there.)

>
>> Children and non-native speakers are taught the phonetic alphabets first
>> (hiragana and katakana), because they're easier to learn and can handle 
>> any
>> word with a small number of simple symbols. Then learners move on to the
>> ideographic ones (the Chinese kanji). I only ever learned a few kanji, 
>> but
>> you notice pretty quickly that once you've learned a kanji you can read 
>> it
>> much more quickly than the phonetic equivalent. (It also helps your brain
>> divide a sentence into words, since Japanese doesn't use spaces, but 
>> that's
>> not really relevent here).
>
> I've seen the same books written in both Kanji and English. The English 
> ones were smaller, significantly so. I suspect the problem was the Kanji 
> font had to be considerably larger in order to be legible, which negated 
> any compression advantage it might have.
>

Yea, I think there's a lot different factors that could be involved in the 
different respective lengths. Anything from font size to translation and who 
knows what else.

Although, if the book was 100% kanji, than it wouldn't have been japanese at 
all, it would have been chinese. Some things in japanese are always written 
phonetically, like basic parts of grammar, most (all?) suffixes (for 
conjugated words).

>
> I agree that color can help, but it helps just as well with text. That's 
> why we have color syntax highlighting editors.
>

That's working on a *completely* different level. It's not relevent. What 
we're talking about here, unlike syntax highlighting, is colors *within* 
what is more or less individual words. A blotch of red in an upper-right 
corner, a thin bit of blue near the middle, whatever, etc., all part of a 
cohesive image. You *could* colorize separate parts of an english word, but 
it's not a natural fit and wouldn't work as well (unless it was already part 
of the language - but it isn't).

>
>> Another thing to note: While the connection between an icon and it's 
>> meaning
>> may not (ever) be close enough to initially teach you what it does, the
>> metaphor (even for non-physical things) is usually close enough, or 
>> logical
>> enough in its own way, to help you *remember* what it does after you've
>> initially learned it.
>
> I still can't remember which of | and O means "on" and "off".

I think you're fairly alone in that ;) *Especially* among programmers.

> Ever since the industry helpfully stopped labeling switches with "on" and 
> "off" my usual technique is to flip it back and forth until it goes on. Is 
> it really progress to change from a system where 99% of the world knows 
> what it means to one where 2% know?

I'd say more like "from 99% to 90%". And those who do know can read it more 
easily, at a further distance, with worse eyesight, in worse lighting 
conditions, at a breifer glance, etc.

> Bring up Adobe's pdf viewer. It has a whole row of icons across the top. I 
> defy you to tell me what they do without hovering over each. Nobody has 
> ever figured out a picture that intuitively means "save", "send" or 
> "print". Some icons do have meaningful pictures, like scroll arrows. But 
> the rest is an awful stretch that is driven by some ideology 
> <shatner>must --- make --- icon</shatner> rather than practicality.
>

Yes, I already agreed that phonetic words are easier to *learn*. But then 
once you *do* learn the pictures, your eye doesn't have to catch as much 
detail or be as accurate in order to recognize what is what.

When was the last time you looked at a button with a picture of a floppy on 
it and *didn't* instantly know it was "save"? Sure, you might not have known 
the first time, but it's not hard to learn, and once you do it's instantly 
recognizable.

'Course I haven't let Adobe's pdf viewer anywhere near my computer in what 
much be close to ten years. Get FoxIt reader: it's not bloatware.

> Back to Thunderbird email. The icon for "Spell" is ABC over a check mark. 
> That is not smaller or more intuitive than "Spell".

No, not initially, but once you do know it, it's much easier to identify at 
a glance.

It's like keyboard shortcuts: Totally unintuitive to learn, but they damn 
sure aid usability and productivity if you do bother to learn them.

Or option screens vs wizards: Wizards are *far* better for beginners. But if 
you already understand the options, having them all on a single page ends up 
being far more effective.