Re: Soliciting ideas on how to avoid reinventing the wheel

["Bonnie Granat" <bgranat -at- granatedit -dot- com>]

k k wrote:
>
> It may help if I give a bit more information. The
> application be deployed in an area which historically
> has high illiteracy and poverty rates, and the general
> public is not within the same ballpark as the leading
> edge of technology. Users will be all ages from the
> teens on up. The application in a lot of instances
> will be run from public-access computers in places
> like libraries. It will most likely be set up to start
> automatically when the computer is booted. The people
> working at those locations may have duties that
> prevent them from being very helpful to app users, and
> some of them may not be much more computer-literate
> anyway. I can't go the video route because there's no
> video equipment in this project.
>

Your original post said your boss wanted information on "how to use
the interface." That's different from how to use a mouse.

I'd put maybe five screens at the beginning, with a *single concept*
on each one that led users through the process of "how to use the
interface." Or maybe ten. But it's going to be limited to "how to use
the interface." It's not a computer primer.

Bonnie Granat
www.granatedit.com