Comments on: “Luddites?” How About “Regular People” http://www.usabilityblog.com/2008/12/luddites-how-about-regular-people/ Blogging about usability, user experience and design Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:40:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Dave http://www.usabilityblog.com/2008/12/luddites-how-about-regular-people/comment-page-1/#comment-8229 Dave Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:32:49 +0000 http://www.usabilityblog.com/index.php/2008/12/04/luddites-how-about-regular-people/#comment-8229 I'm teaching myself guitar...slowly. I don't complain that it's hard, or that it takes lots of study and practice. That's the cost of being able to wield an axe. In the same way, taking some time to learn Wikicode and the rules of Wikipedia is the cost of being a contributor to the best information source in existence. Usability convention may say we should fight for the easiest way, and that's true, but eventually a corollary will be added: some barriers to entry are important to keep features strong and quality high. In this case, the complaint has nothing to do with the 'usability' of Wikipedia's editing interface, and everything to do with people who: - don't understand why they should have to learn wikicode or why there are conventions to Wikipedia article editing - don't want to learn the code/conventions I’m teaching myself guitar…slowly. I don’t complain that it’s hard, or that it takes lots of study and practice. That’s the cost of being able to wield an axe. In the same way, taking some time to learn Wikicode and the rules of Wikipedia is the cost of being a contributor to the best information source in existence.

Usability convention may say we should fight for the easiest way, and that’s true, but eventually a corollary will be added: some barriers to entry are important to keep features strong and quality high.

In this case, the complaint has nothing to do with the ‘usability’ of Wikipedia’s editing interface, and everything to do with people who:
– don’t understand why they should have to learn wikicode or why there are conventions to Wikipedia article editing
– don’t want to learn the code/conventions

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