Agreed, an easier to use operating system would be great for most power-users too. I'd start by eliminating the desktop and completely abstracting away the file system, instead letting you browse all of your media files at once, all of your documents, etc.
I'd do it with a dynamic start page that would let you accomplish everything from within Ubuntu/Firefox in kiosk mode. The design's the hard part, but I have the beginnings of a workable design.
That's just cliche. What is intuitive? I'm using a Mac right now. I like it, but I've had endless troubles explaining it to others. It's things like the difference between installed programs and running programs. The difference between task based and object/type based actions. People don't grasp how file systems work. People don't grasp the difference between main memory and harddisk and everything connected to it like saving documents. And don't get me started about networks and login identities...
The desktop metaphor is useless and inconsistent with other things like windows. The desk I'm sitting at physically does NOT have windows cluttering it up! Windows are in the wall, not on my desk. I don't know who had the idea that this is in any way intuitive. My desk also doesn't have programs that are connected in some magic way to my documents. A menu is something I use in a restaurant, not at work or when I watch a movie.
These are not Mac specific problems, but the Mac doesn't solve them either. We need a radically different idea of how a system's complexity scales with its growing capabilities. We need to stop confronting people with that old Von Neumann architeture and we have to stop the attempt to mitigate it with with grotesque inconsistent metaphors.
My grandfather can't understand how his DVD player has more than one disc. He just doesn't have any the technical ability nor does he really care about anything but how to get email. I've tried multiple operating systems and instructed him on computer use. He's just from another generation (he's really old), even though he has an engineering degree from Notre Dame.
It would be nice if there was some OS that would boot up and nicely display like 4 or 5 choices to do; flickr, email, internet, news aggregation, and storage. Have the system handle everything else and they could actually enjoy it.
Yes. I applied and got an interview with YC for what was more or less this idea... among other reasons for our rejection, one was that we failed the flexibility test by strongly disagreeing with Paul Graham's suggestion that the simplified subset of our problem to focus on was an "internet picture frame with email" which conflicted with our stated goals of not trivializing the internet appliance.
I would go so far as to not give the user access to low level storage, but only give them access to their files in the context of specific tasks that used them (unless they were in advanced mode). Email me if you'd like to talk about this more.
It worked out pretty well for my father, who's 80. It probably ruins the experiment that he had been using (well, failing to use) Windows for years previously, however.
How does he do with the mouse? From my experience, people over a certain age just never quite get the mouse. Touch screens are the ideal solution, touch pads would be fine except the ones on laptops are too small, and trackballs are a whole lot better than mice because they let you seperate the action of clicking and moving... too often I see older computer users accidentally moving the pointer when they want to click.
He understands and uses the mouse; his problem with that is not the concept, but tremor. The first mouse he ever used at home was a trackball, but he hasn't had much problem switching to the scroll-ball mouse that came with his Mac Mini.
On Windows, he never seemed to get the difference between situations calling for left click and those calling for right click, so the single-button mouse was a relief.
Touch screens can be good for a lot of things but a desktop just isn't one of them unless the monitor is laid flat on the desk. Having to reach out your arm to the monitor constantly is not comfortable.
I agree. I built my grandparents a computer from scraps and it ran swimmingly, but they never could manage the mouse and the home country just doesn't look the same on a cathode ray tube. They were politely disinterested.
By focusing on simple yet powerful tasks, like photos, news, and email and making the entire GUI these tasks in blindingly large fonts, you can make the experience obvious to uninitiated users.
It's not intuitive. I had to google for stuff like "how to rename a file in OS X", because Apple felt too good for putting such things into the menu for the right mouse button. Windows might be messy, but there is essentially just one rule to remember: when stuck, try the right mouse button. I don't see an equivalent for that in OS X.
