I was working on article about the paperless office and thought the sentence below together with the footnote conveyed an important message and helpful tip. (My thesis, as variously stated on this site, is that the paperless office is just about getting comfortable using a computer, i.e. the operating system, and then learning to work with digital documents, i.e. use Acrobat.)
The real benefits accrue by working with digital documents and they multiply and compound rapidly to open up the full range of possibilities computers enable which extends well beyond work in the office.[1]
[1] My thinking here is based on a chain of events that I think likely and common. “Wow this is easy and helpful. What else is there?” This happens because most of the best stuff computers have to offer, they give up very quickly and to great effect.
For example, I installed Google Desktop for a client then running Windows XP, and gave my advice with a single sentence. “Press the control key twice and start typing what you want.” From then on, he searched his computer like Google and stopped wasting time looking for things. We recently set up his new MacBook and he asked “Are we going to set up Google Desktop?” I replied that there was no need. “Just click the magnifying glass icon or press space bar and command keys together and type what you want.” I told him that Macs come with “Spotlight,” a search feature that pervades the OS and finds and organizes things in ways not possible on XP.
In just a few seconds and with a click or keystroke, he had a whole new understanding about what the computer could do for him and just how helpful it can be. Windows Vista and Windows 7, also have such and search feature, just press the Window key or click the Window start icon and start typing what you want. And like a Mac, wherever you see a box with a magnifying glass just start typing.
The underlying functionality is called indexed search. It is what makes Google work and it lets everyone treat their machine just like the web but with more relevant results. Indexed search is perhaps the best example of the inverted computer learning curve. Massive benefits come fast and easy, it’s the smaller, incremental improvements that seem to take up so much time, but unless you get in very deep you are unlikely to experience that frustration.
The fact is that most stuff that many people use is designed by people to be used by people and not computer scientists or programmers. I include that calculation every time I say to a colleague or client “You can do…” I don’t mean that it can be done, I mean that the person I am talking to can do it simply and easily.