Calculating Dog

One thing I discovered in software development is that you have to distinguish between the user's problems and the user's solutions to those problems. A great example of this concept is Henry Ford's quote that of he had asked customers at the start of his career what he could do to improve their transportation problems, they would have asked for faster horses.  Instead, he concentrated on the customer's problem (transportation) but created his own situation.  Okay, it turns out he probably never said that, but you get the point.

That sounds obvious when we're looking at a situation a century in the past, but today it's not so easy to ignore the user's suggestions. The computer biz has a bad history of ignoring the customer's needs all together, so ignoring user suggestions, even in the name of innovation, will be frowned upon.

One thing users will always ask for is a simple button.  That is, they'll ask why they have to dig through menus and dialog boxes to accomplish something, why can't they just hit a button.  The problem with that is that with much modern software, if there is a button for each task it's capable of, the screen will be covered with buttons.  It will be impossible to find the button you're looking for, and it will be even harder to use.

A good example is here on my laptop, which has a number of dedicated keys for launching programs such as e-mail and the web browser.  Personally, I find that a waste of the precious real estate of a laptop keyboard.  I launch the browser once and then leave it open, and I get email through the web, so I don't need a special key to make it easier to get to either.

But the big fury-inducer on this keyboard is the button to launch the calculator.  How often does a person use the calculator on a computer anyway?  It's only needed for that little gap between math that's faster to do in your head, and math that's part of a more sophisticated program like a spreadsheet or an accounting application.  And yet, I can launch it with one stroke of a pinky.  I have to admit, I have used the key.  But the number of times I've intentionally use it is infinitesimal compared to the number of times I've accidentally hit it.  What's worse, it's right beside the Control Key, so if I do hit it by accident, I'm usually holding it down while hitting another key.  On a few occasions I have completely filled the screen with calculator windows.