Endless Ramblings

A blog entry by my colleague Ann John strikes a familiar chord.  In her article she mentions the difficulties her mother has with computer operation, especially file management.  I have a feeling that this is quite common.  Looking back, my own mother had problems with menu structures on devices such as VCRs and phone answering machines.

I agree with Ann that there is a Generation Gap concerning technology, and that it is harder for some of the elderly to get comfortable with the usage of it.  But I got the surprise of my life the other day when college level students in my class displayed a genuine lack of knowledge concerning directory structure.

It seems that when they save items on their own computer, the issue takes care of itself.  The file automatically is saved in a place where they can find it.  But when they are using a networked machine having many different users and several available drives, many students have trouble navigating to the proper drive and going a few layers deep to save the file in the correct folder.  The operation looks different from what they are used to doing on their own machine.  As a result, many of them don’t navigate deep enough.  They save their file in the wrong place, and can’t find it later.

Interestingly enough, this was happening on an Apple computer using Final Cut Pro software.  When you open Final Cut, you automatically inherit the settings of the last user.  In a group setting this means you must respecify where you want your work saved.  To do that you need to use a hierarchical file system.

Dan Saffer mentions the hierarchical file system in a book titled: Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices.  While giving an example of a woman having trouble locating her files on a computer, he writes:

Although computer operating systems need hierarchical file systems, the people who use them don’t.  It’s not surprising that computer programmers like to see the underlying hierarchical file systems, but it is equally unremarkable that normal users like Jane don’t.  Unremarkable to everyone, that is, except the programmers who create the software that we all use.  They create the behavior and information presentation that they like best, which is very different from the behavior and information presentation that is best for Jane.  Jane’s frustration and inefficiency is blamed on Jane, and not the programmers who torpedoed her(11).

Obviously Ann’s mom is not alone, although I do find it surprising that some younger people have the same difficulty.  After all, they grew up with computers.  On the other hand, these difficulties show that the hierarchical file system poses the same pitfalls to everyone and may not be the most intuitive system for many users to operate.

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