We've Forgotten How to Use Computers
theatlantic.com
We've Forgotten How to Use Computers
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Re: We've Forgotten How to Use Computers
#2Re: We've Forgotten How to Use Computers
#3The reason the original Macintosh mouse had only one button: so users would not need to remember which one to click. That was a Jobs mandate.
Re: We've Forgotten How to Use Computers
#4What is this article even trying to say? Clickbait title but the whole thing is about using a mouse? Yeah, interfaces are evolving. Most of the populace use a computer not for using's sake, but to accomplish a goal. Touchscreens are great for information consumption and free-form entry. Keyboards are good for text production. What is a mouse good for other than manipulating 2d objects?
Re: We've Forgotten How to Use Computers
#5Odd title for a piece that is mostly an elegy for the mouse.
Re: We've Forgotten How to Use Computers
#6Many have never used a floppy, updated a config.sys, or attached a serial, parallel, or ps/2 port. And it's perfectly fine.
Re: We've Forgotten How to Use Computers
#7Kind of related: https://news.slashdot.org/story/21/09/27/2032200/students-do...
Ultimately though, we need to remember that mice, keyboards, touchscreens, et al. are all merely compromises that were developed to let humans who speak human communicate with computers who speak computer. If we figure out an overall better way than the means before, it's natural they will be superceded.
I do agree with the author that the mouse lends itself very well to precision control, though. Touchscreen is easy and readily available, but it leaves much to be desired for precise control.
Re: We've Forgotten How to Use Computers
#8Many have never used a floppy, updated a config.sys, or attached a serial, parallel, or ps/2 port. And it's perfectly fine.
Yes, but there are things that aren't so obsolete about using a computer that many young people don't know anymore and which are really still needed. I'm not the only person who has noticed that teaching the current generation of undergraduates that many of them don't understand the idea of a hierarchical file system, whether using the graphical folder analogy or as directories. They have trouble understanding that programs on computers save things in locations that you need to navigate to when trying to find it again. It isn't that these young people are stupid, it's that many of them are just used to phones where this idea either doesn't exist or is hidden from user access.
Re: We've Forgotten How to Use Computers
#9Article about the death of the mouse has an odd section slagging on gaming mice. Sure.
Re: We've Forgotten How to Use Computers
#10The reason the original Macintosh mouse had only one button: so users would not need to remember which one to click. That was a Jobs mandate.
To be brutally honest: Job is (was?) right.
To this day I see most people do not understand right-clicking, and why should they? Context menus are not in-your-face obvious, let alone right-click dragging and other esoteric maneuvers.
I see something similar with touchscreens too: Most people don't know much beyond pinch to zoom. Any gestures or input involving 3 fingers or more is literal pig latin.
Simplifying the mouse down to one button is an engineering decision that aligns with human psychology, even if it's one that rustles the jimmies of many nerds and beards.