The EasyToUse-Software Hoax

[Mark P. Line]

Under the pressure of recent discussion concerning the ease of use of
GRASS and other software, I'd like to offer the following short excerpt
from the current bible on the subject of human-computer interaction. It is
in the light of these ideas that the quality of GRASS should be evaluated,
IMO.

"Although making things easy to use is, self-evidently, a good idea and
has caught on as a popular slogan, the idea is simple-minded. In reality
'ease of use' is a complex and interesting tradeoff. Furthermore, it is
very easy to confuse ease of use with ease of learning, for *surely* a
difficult system to use will be hard to learn? But easily learnt systems
may have to be used in contorted ways once the user has progressed beyond
basic learning to serious use...

"... If we knew how to make anything interesting easy to use, then we
would be making easy to use educational systems, easy to use political
systems and generally saving the world. Some applications, clearly, are
never going to be easy -- though they may be made a lot easier than most
computers presently make them appear.

...

"Designing interactive systems is not just a matter of making them easy to
use: it is a matter of balancing ease against other factors, such as power
and security. You don't want an easy to use bank account if it means it is
easy to use for *anybody*! ... 

"So, note the following: systems are not 'easy to use' or 'difficult to
use'. Systems may be found easier or harder by different people under
different circumstances. We cannot simply say that a menu system is easier
to use than a command-based system, though it often is the case that we
can modify an existing system to make it easier than it was. The question
to ask, is not is this system easy to use, but is it easy enough to use,
and if not (as is too often the case), can we find ways to make it easier?"