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Subject:RE: Re: Mac vs PC users From:"Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Tue, 6 Jul 2010 16:52:04 +0000
Apple went to considerable effort and expense in its early years to get their products into schools, and the payoff for this was a fairly large number of young people graduating with years of Mac user experience. A lot of them discovered that their first jobs were at PC-only companies that wouldn't accommodate their Mac preferences, but they still had the basics like File > Save down.
Having been both a Mac and PC beginner at various times, I don't think either is inherently more intuitive than the other. But having a 10-15 year head start on indoctrinating users definitely helped Apple create that reputation for Macs.
Your marketing people should be able to provide insight into the level of computer knowledge your intended customers are expected to have. If not, advanced users who are annoyed by instructions they consider overly detailed are probably less likely to return products than beginners who can't figure out how to make them work.
Are there any studies out there that anyone knows of that compare how
MAC users interact with computers compared to PC users?
Are MAC users quicker learners?
I"m writing some Help for a MAC application, and a lot of the feedback I
get is, EVERYONE knows this - you don't have to explain it (such as what
happens when I click File > Save, or what an Action button is, etc.
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