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  • From: "John Schinnerer" <john@eco-living.net>
  • To: "pcplantdb" <pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] new comments on 0.2.3 - advanced search
  • Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 04:43:27 -1000 (HST)

Aloha,

I follow your logic.
However, we're dealing with human beings, not logic.

Bottom line for me is that Stephanie didn't get what she expected - not
even close, nor could she readily figure out why and what and how it
actually worked and what to do different to get what she wanted/expected.
My assumptions and understandings pretty much matched hers or I wouldn't
have made such a long comment.

So are we going to make software that works intuitively based on what
people expect and want, or are we going to do it 'logically' and then have
a huge FAQ and howto and so on explaining how it actually works and what
counter-intuitive things one has to learn to do to get what one actually
wants out of the system?

I'm exaggerating somewhat, but IMO that's exactly why computers/software
is mostly so crappy and hard to use. Engineers 'design' it based on
abstractions and logic and not on how people experience existence and
interact with context.

Also, from her msg. I didn't get that the 'first 10' or however many items
matched all her constraints, the way you say it would work:

> ...If an object or objects match all
> 10 then the AND displays the object[s]... so does the OR followed by
> other items that didn't match all 10.

It sounded to me like she got nothing like she expected, certainly not at
the top of the list.
Correct me if I'm wrong on that Stephanie.

At the very least adv. srch. needs some help info so people know how to
use it, if it's going to stay the way it is.

My guess is that most people will not get it and will have a hard time
figuring it out.

My comparison is not to internet search engines, it is to at least
somewhat focused database search forms and queries, which is what I
thought we were building here.

John S.

John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
------------------------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Whole Systems Design Services
People - Place - Learning - Integration
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net






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