From: Karl Fogel <kfogel@red-bean.com>
To: "Andreas Röhler" <andreas.roehler@online.de>
Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: GNU Emacs raison d'etre
Date: Wed, 13 May 2020 15:05:29 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87pnb7sira.fsf@red-bean.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <efc501d8-a73e-0c5c-f518-001396d89c55@online.de> ("Andreas Röhler"'s message of "Wed, 13 May 2020 21:39:52 +0200")
On 13 May 2020, Andreas Röhler wrote:
>Agree with everything beside two last paragraphs. Enjoying the
>possibilities to extend and assisting new users being productive seems
>no contradiction. May you give an example where an smooth entrance
>hinders the power of more complex functionality?
The newcomer-vs-expert tradeoff is real, and it's pervasive throughout UI and UX design.
One example is button-based functionality. For both experts and newcomers, those buttons/icons take away screen real estate -- but for newcomers they make features easier to find, so it's worth it. For experts, they *just* take away screen real estate, while providing little or no benefit.
Use of small symbols to indicate state in the modeline is another area. Experienced users know what "**" in the mode line means, what "%" means, etc. Newcomers are frequently confused by the mode line; it is noise to them, until they know how to interpret it -- but that takes a bit of investment. Now, we could provide bigger, more verbose signs of current state -- but then we'd be taking away screen real estate again.
Another area is the keybinding space and the minibuffer. Just about every time I have watched a new user use Emacs, I have noticed how frequently they accidentally hit some key combination or sequence and wind up in some weird state that they never meant to be in -- and don't know how to get out of. Often they have minibuffer prompts sitting around all the time, and are unaware that Emacs is asking them for some piece of information (after all, the user didn't mean to put Emacs into that state and has no idea she did so). But having those keybindings available is *good* for experts, as we know from personal experience.
I could go on. I've taught many newcomers to Emacs, and often the things that are hardest for them are exactly the things that are *good* for the experienced user.
These design tradeoffs cannot be avoided. It would be a fallacy to think that it's always possible to be *both* maximally newcomer-friendly and investor-friendly.
(The term "user-friendly" is itself misleading. There is no such thing as "a user" in a way that makes the term "user-friendly" meaningful. Better terms would at least attempt to make important distinctions -- "newcomer-friendly", "expert-friendly", "ADHD-friendly", "limited-movement-friendly", "visually-impaired-friendly", etc -- and would encourage designers to understand that being good in some categories means being bad in others.)
Best regards,
-Karl
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2020-05-13 20:05 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 273+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2020-05-08 8:26 Making Emacs popular again with a video Nathan Colinet
2020-05-08 10:39 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-10 20:48 ` Nathan Colinet
2020-05-08 10:41 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-10 16:18 ` Nathan Colinet
2020-05-08 11:33 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-10 20:32 ` Nathan Colinet
2020-05-11 22:59 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-09 7:50 ` Andreas Röhler
2020-05-10 20:57 ` Nathan Colinet
2020-05-12 3:12 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-12 7:04 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-12 13:59 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-12 14:47 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-12 16:08 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-13 4:01 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-13 8:49 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-14 5:14 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-14 10:22 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-14 10:55 ` Robert Pluim
2020-05-15 3:25 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-15 7:55 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-15 10:11 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-15 10:43 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-15 11:23 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-15 19:15 ` H. Dieter Wilhelm
2020-05-15 18:41 ` H. Dieter Wilhelm
2020-05-22 19:09 ` Ben McGinnes
[not found] ` <E1jcLVP-0003SB-II@fencepost.gnu.org>
2020-05-24 19:16 ` Ben McGinnes
2020-05-14 14:13 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-14 7:38 ` Tim Cross
2020-05-14 7:51 ` Andreas Röhler
2020-05-14 14:18 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-14 15:36 ` Tim Cross
2020-05-13 10:43 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-12 8:23 ` Andreas Röhler
2020-05-13 3:55 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-13 8:18 ` Andreas Röhler
2020-05-13 10:53 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-13 16:20 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-14 2:18 ` (emacs) Intro [was: Making Emacs popular again with a video] excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-14 12:04 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-14 21:31 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-15 0:46 ` Dmitry Gutov
[not found] ` <d28fe30d-c192-8022-b758-d8b7019e49b5@yandex.ru-M7KnL6R----2>
2020-05-17 19:11 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-19 14:14 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
[not found] ` <d66793e5-07f9-4dd9-928d-e7e8c342b781@default>
[not found] ` <M7iByNw--3-2@tutanota.com>
2020-05-21 18:18 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
[not found] ` <M7sSK-m--3-2@tutanota.com-M7sSUVm--3-2>
2020-05-28 1:21 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-28 7:08 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-28 7:41 ` Andreas Röhler
2020-05-28 10:23 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-29 2:39 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-29 7:28 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-29 7:40 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-29 15:14 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-05-30 1:39 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-14 22:14 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-15 3:17 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-15 6:36 ` Andreas Röhler
2020-05-12 12:57 ` GNU Emacs raison d'etre excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-13 16:18 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-13 16:28 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-13 19:39 ` Andreas Röhler
2020-05-13 20:05 ` Karl Fogel [this message]
2020-05-13 20:52 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-13 22:04 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-13 22:55 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-14 4:56 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-14 16:37 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-14 22:11 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-15 3:16 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-15 21:42 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-15 22:14 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-16 0:03 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-15 22:41 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-20 21:47 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-20 22:35 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-21 0:35 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-16 2:43 ` Eduardo Ochs
2020-05-18 3:46 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-18 11:26 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-16 8:05 ` Yuri Khan
2020-05-16 10:36 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-16 10:46 ` Yuri Khan
2020-05-17 1:28 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-17 1:39 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-17 1:40 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-17 1:59 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-05-17 2:52 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-17 9:32 ` Joost Kremers
2020-05-17 11:07 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-18 3:43 ` transient Richard Stallman
2020-05-18 6:58 ` transient Joost Kremers
2020-05-18 11:29 ` transient Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-18 18:41 ` transient Howard Melman
2020-05-18 19:35 ` transient John Yates
2020-05-18 19:57 ` transient Howard Melman
2020-05-19 5:38 ` transient Drew Adams
2020-05-19 14:00 ` transient Arthur Miller
2020-05-20 3:14 ` transient Michael Heerdegen
2020-05-19 22:04 ` transient Stefan Kangas
2020-05-19 22:53 ` transient Drew Adams
2020-05-19 4:02 ` which-key Richard Stallman
2020-05-17 7:09 ` GNU Emacs raison d'etre Drew Adams
2020-05-20 21:36 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-20 21:57 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-20 22:00 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-20 22:07 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-21 8:03 ` tomas
2020-05-21 9:33 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-21 10:04 ` tomas
2020-05-24 14:05 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-21 16:20 ` xristos
2020-05-24 13:45 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-24 16:52 ` xristos
2020-05-24 17:00 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-24 18:31 ` Philip K.
2020-05-25 17:34 ` João Távora
2020-05-26 4:14 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-26 11:32 ` João Távora
2020-05-27 3:08 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-27 5:01 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-29 12:59 ` Arthur Miller
2020-06-23 3:59 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-21 17:07 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-23 20:36 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-14 6:26 ` tomas
2020-05-14 6:16 ` Andreas Röhler
2020-05-15 3:18 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-16 0:56 ` Tak Kunihiro
2020-05-16 6:50 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-16 9:10 ` Sergey Organov
2020-05-16 10:38 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-16 12:24 ` Sergey Organov
2020-05-16 12:29 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-16 12:34 ` Sergey Organov
2020-05-16 12:46 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-16 13:57 ` Sergey Organov
2020-05-16 19:35 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-16 20:05 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-16 20:34 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-16 20:44 ` Bob Newell
2020-06-24 15:37 ` Ricardo Wurmus
2020-05-16 23:12 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-16 23:18 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-16 23:47 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-17 1:14 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-17 3:13 ` Stefan Kangas
2020-05-17 6:49 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-17 7:02 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-05-17 7:11 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-17 9:07 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-05-17 10:20 ` Marcin Borkowski
2020-05-17 11:07 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-05-17 15:25 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-17 15:48 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-05-17 17:06 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-05-17 17:31 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-17 18:57 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-17 20:03 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-18 8:32 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-18 11:39 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-18 13:02 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-18 13:38 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-18 16:31 ` Robert Pluim
2020-05-18 23:14 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-19 8:41 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-20 1:01 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-20 9:06 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-21 0:15 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-21 9:07 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-21 23:16 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-22 9:31 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-25 2:37 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-26 8:06 ` martin rudalics
2020-06-05 2:40 ` pop-up-mini-mode, was " Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-19 8:40 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-20 0:40 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-20 9:04 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-20 13:28 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-20 14:45 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-20 14:56 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-20 16:12 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-20 17:45 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-20 18:09 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-20 18:16 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-20 18:24 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-20 18:33 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-20 18:56 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-20 19:22 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-20 19:53 ` tomas
2020-05-20 21:22 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-21 7:43 ` tomas
2020-05-21 2:28 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-21 22:19 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-22 7:28 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-22 12:16 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-20 23:07 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-21 13:11 ` Eli Zaretskii
2020-05-21 17:55 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-18 15:57 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-19 8:41 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-21 18:19 ` Suppressing beginning/end-of-buffer error messages (WAS: GNU Emacs raison d'etre) Noam Postavsky
2020-05-22 9:30 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-22 12:46 ` Noam Postavsky
[not found] ` <11bfe86b-131c-4f55-5125-c269a73e360d@gmx.at>
2020-05-23 11:10 ` Noam Postavsky
2020-05-17 18:36 ` GNU Emacs raison d'etre Drew Adams
2020-05-17 21:04 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-05-17 21:48 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-17 18:38 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-17 21:17 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-05-17 21:37 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-18 8:33 ` martin rudalics
2020-05-18 11:37 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-17 21:57 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-17 18:28 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-17 17:59 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-17 18:07 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-17 7:54 ` Sergey Organov
2020-05-17 11:37 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-17 18:11 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-16 23:01 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-17 2:55 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-28 4:12 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-28 5:51 ` Eduardo Ochs
2020-05-28 6:13 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-28 14:12 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-28 14:42 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-05-28 16:34 ` Drew Adams
2020-05-29 14:44 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-05-28 15:00 ` Philip K.
2020-05-28 15:13 ` João Távora
2020-05-28 16:04 ` T.V Raman
[not found] ` <p914ks0kpui.fsf@google.com-M8R14r9----2>
2020-05-28 16:12 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-28 16:46 ` T.V Raman
2020-05-28 17:34 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-28 18:11 ` andres.ramirez
[not found] ` <877dwwezfr.fsf@red-bean.com-M8RLd3p--3-2>
2020-05-28 18:28 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-29 1:12 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-30 1:44 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-30 2:02 ` Jean-Christophe Helary
2020-05-30 9:13 ` Arthur Miller
2020-05-30 16:43 ` Alfred M. Szmidt
2020-05-31 7:07 ` Richard Stallman
2020-06-08 17:37 ` REmacs was " T.V Raman
2020-06-01 7:29 ` Meaning behind Control-G Lars Brinkhoff
2020-06-01 7:56 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2020-06-01 9:06 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2020-06-01 13:44 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-06-02 1:51 ` Paul Eggert
2020-06-02 5:58 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2020-06-02 13:50 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-06-02 15:38 ` Drew Adams
2020-06-02 11:46 ` John Yates
2020-07-10 12:13 ` GNU Emacs raison d'etre Lars Brinkhoff
2020-07-10 14:28 ` Drew Adams
2020-07-11 2:16 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-28 16:41 ` FW: " Drew Adams
2020-05-28 17:37 ` Stefan Monnier
2020-05-28 20:33 ` Perry E. Metzger
2020-05-28 23:44 ` T.V Raman
2020-05-29 3:04 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-13 19:46 ` T.V Raman
2020-05-13 21:00 ` Dmitry Gutov
2020-05-13 21:02 ` excalamus--- via Emacs development discussions.
2020-05-13 22:22 ` H. Dieter Wilhelm
2020-05-14 4:20 ` Karl Fogel
2020-05-14 0:04 ` John Wiegley
2020-05-14 5:08 ` Richard Stallman
2020-05-14 20:29 ` Karl Fogel
[not found] <64c4b2e4-3c07-0ad4-bcdf-39e95cae8a57.ref@aol.com>
2020-08-09 17:11 ` Clive Tovero
2020-08-10 1:26 ` Alexandre Garreau
[not found] <c0ffdaa1-90cc-2bb3-d2e0-93c7115df969.ref@aol.com>
2020-08-10 2:49 ` Clive Tovero
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