Reply to "What the heck is this?"

[Daniel Strychalski <dski -at- CAMEONET -dot- CAMEO -dot- COM -dot- TW>]

Kelly Burhenne (Mon., Mar. 20) wondered aloud what this is:  _]||/|[_ \o_>/\

This is a case of insufficient usability testing. I thought the right side
was more obvious than the left, but when I showed it to my wife she had
trouble with the right side and got the part on the left right away. She
suggested a change to the right side, and since she's an artist (though not
yet in ASCII) I took her advice and thought the whole thing would work.

Sorry. It's a bookshelf and someone in bed with a book. I originally planned
to combine it with a statement about the unsuitability of computer screens
for imitating the printed page, or about the effect of GUIs on literacy
levels. That might have made it clearer.

I'm a text person all the way. I think "dem GUIs" have gone too far replacing
textual commands with pictures and giving us never-quite-WYSIWYG displays
that make all but the newest, biggest, fastest machines useless. I also think
that what let them get away with it is the failure of those writing non-GUI
software to produce decent manuals and comprehensible command and help
screens (not that "dem GUIs" do any better in those departments).

I'm getting carried away, and this isn't TECHWR.GRIPE-L. Sorry again. I'll
*try* to restrict myself to constructive comments....

Dan Strychalski   dski -at- cameonet -dot- cameo -dot- com -dot- tw