it just works

[Flash flash@xxxxxxxx]

Y'all,
Further to an earlier thread between Robt and Russ about the fact some
computers 'just work', I found the following in some literature about
PACS (picture archiving and communications system). As you might
imagine, picture archiving and transmission in hospitals is large-scale
stuff. Literally hundreds of thousands of images being beamed back and
forth between departments at a major institute requires a user
interface which 'just works', otherwise it will not find acceptance.
"For any soft-copy reading package [i.e., user-interaface for
displaying radiological data] there should be a single image display
metaphor (IDM). An IDM is the underlying concept of how the software
designer expects the user to interact with images. It is clearly
advantageous for the IDM to be easy to understand or remember and it
should be generalizable and powerful. If it is, users can predict how
to accomplish a function or arrangement which they have not been taught
or seen before. .." [Bradley Erickson, Evaluating a Picture Archiving &
Communications System Workstation, Journal of Digital Imaging, vol. 12
no.2]
For 'predictable' read what Mac users call 'intuitive'. It should be
possible to figure out how to use it in half an hour without recourse
to tech manuals or a hotline. If not, it isn't intuitive. This does
not mean that it must be dummed down with animated wizards for blondes
and secretaries. What it needs to be is consistent and fairly obvious:
if you want to configure your ethernet card, you look under 'network'
and not '%Rootdirectory\winnt\system32\drivers\wind32wotsitcalled.dll'
for example.
A command line interface can fulfill this requirement, too, provided
the commands and syntax are consistent and predictable. That's one of
the reasons I like XyWrite, and I want to thank Robt for consistently
typing commands (SAve, SPell, LoaD) in his emails to reinforce this. It
is actually sinking in here.

Cheers,