A really good article on software usability

[Anne Wilson]

On Friday 05 January 2007 15:41, Tim wrote:
> Tim:
> >> I was helping someone come to terms with computing a while back, and
> >> every time they closed a document, they'd be asked about saving it, and
> >> they'd always say yes, no matter what.
>
> Anne Wilson:
> > But at least it's the safe option.
>
> But it wasn't.  They were losing data and keeping broken copies.  They
> were saving unintentional changes to documents, irretrievably losing the
> originals.  Likewise, they were saving what were meant to be temporary
> changes to documents (bit they didn't want printed, but still wanted in
> the file).
>
Sorry, but there's no way on earth you can protect data from people who refuse 
to use the brain.

> > So you don't consider print settings for the document to be a real
> > change?  I do.  It's odds on that if I want to print it again I will want
> > to use the identical settings.
>
> I don't.  If I'd changed printer settings, perhaps.  But just printing
> the document, no.  The "document" hasn't changed.  Data about it may
> have, if you keep track of how many times it's printed.  But in the
> usual sense of whether some document has changed, refers to the actual
> content.

That I had to test, as I had never seen it happen.  I opened a document in 
OOWriter, one that I knew had been previously printed.  I accepted the 
printer settings and printed it.  I then closed it.  No dialogue - it just 
closed.

Anne
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