1. 06:56 21st Jul 2011

    But the Dock falls short, especially for novice users, as an application launcher. Or rather, it falls short if the application to be launched isn’t actually in the Dock. Most novice users I know want to have every application they are likely to use available in the Dock at all times. As these users gain experience, the Dock can become a very crowded place. But why are these increasingly Mac-savvy users stuffing their Docks to the gills rather than limiting its contents to just the applications they use most frequently?

    The answer lies in how applications not in the Dock are located and launched. Choices include the Finder, Spotlight, or (I suppose) a Terminal window. Moving from an always-visible line of colorful icons that’s front and center on the screen to any one of those alternatives represents a huge increase in conceptual and mechanical complexity.

    If you don’t understand how typing the name of an application into a search box can be so much more difficult than clicking an icon in the Dock, I suggest that you have not spent enough time with novice users. Such users often don’t even know the name of the application they want—or if they do, they don’t know how to spell it. That’s before considering the frequent disorientation caused by the rapid-fire search results refinement animation in the Spotlight menu, or the existence of multiple files whose contents or names contain the string being searched for. And this all assumes novices know (or remember) what Spotlight is and how to activate it in the first place.

    The jump in complexity from the Dock to the Finder, I think, needs less explanation. As a general rule, novice users just don’t understand the file system. They don’t understand the hierarchy of machines, devices, and volumes; they don’t grasp the concept of the current working directory; they don’t know how to identify a file or folder’s position within the hierarchy. Fear of the file system practically defines novice users; it is usually the last and biggest hurdle in the journey from timid experimentation to basic technical competence.

    — 

    From John Siracusa’s massive (and awesome) review of Mac OS X Lion.

    I would like to add, as someone who has provided computer support professionally for a decade and a half now to users of both Macs and Windows, that Mr. Siracusa is correct, but that even someone who has been using computers for years can exhibit these signs of being “a novice user”. Some folks, for whatever reason, simply never learn the basics of navigating the instrument that they are forced to use in their daily work. In fact, for some, I believe it’s a point of pride.