Audience
It is funny how 'a-ha moments' happen at random times and on random topics. The other day I was walking back from the water cooler at work, and doing some critical thinking as I was (yes! I can do two things at once, even though Sandi doesn't think I can!).
Anyways, I had a realization of how when my English teachers in high school (thank you Mr. Stephens and Mrs. Baldwin) harped on the taget audience for a particular essay, that the topic audience isn't really specific to writing essays, it lends itself to many walks of life... especially writing software.
Many people talk about Microsoft always catering to the LCD (even Mark recently did!) and how the *nix community is usually the opposite. The conversation usually (at least with tech-types) is that the level of control given by *nix is the right mix of simplicity and control.
Ahem... I beg to differ... or do I?
Maybe you'll think I'm just trying to walk the line (because you're mine?), but I don't think so. I think it all depends on who you're trying to reach as to what 'denominator' you cater to. Obviously its hard for Microsoft to hit it right, for example, with the Vista shutdown menu, when their target audience is EVERYONE. That includes me, you, Grandma's, 5-year olds and anyone else. It's easier for *nix to get it 'right', because they have a much more narrow audience.
I'll be the first to confess I have a heck of a time when designing the front-end of an app, and that is mostly due to audience. Part of my job requires that I lay out new UI's when I add new functionality to our product. Believe you me, I am no graphical designer or usability expert. I usually want to lay it out and build as if I were using it... however, apparently engineers aren't the typical user-base of debt-collection software. However, when I write tools (I am often times the Toolsmith for my team as well) that are meant for engineers, I have a completely different audience and an entirely different set of assumptions when laying out the UI that is much more native to my own. It's a learning process, and I am definitely still on the climb up the curve.
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View Jon Fuller's profile
January 15th, 2007 - 11:30
I can’t complain tooo much at least in the shutdown menu case, though I think the options on that window are bit obscene. Windows does have a shutdown command from the command prompt with most of the same options as linux.
January 16th, 2007 - 03:14
It’s true, they target the whole world so we don’t have (get?) to. Best of luck in your quest to provided the greatest interface in debt collection. At least now you have your cousin for the inside scoop
So which audience were they targeting when they put all those shutdown options in a menu called Start? Even as a techie I feel pain much of the time when I’m working in Linux, but I gotta say Ubuntu is doing well on that problem. First they put it under the System menu, which was, eh, an improvement. Now they have a bright red power button that’s crying out “Click me to turn off the computer!”