If getting down on my knees as I write this letter would attract your attention, I'd do it. As a textbook author and an ex-teacher who has taught several thousand students, I can't understand why the software experts don't provide easy-to-understand instructions on how to successfully use their software. Why don't they capitalize on the power of the computer, via software, to effect two-way communication, something that manuals and textbooks can't DO, what the formal "education" system rarely does? To date software is largely one-way, and sadly it's rarely checked to see if us users understand.
Why not well-designed, two-way software that follows an teaching method called Programmed Instruction, a successful technique that has been around for over fifty years? With this method the material starts with the most basic point/s, checks for comprehension, repeats instructions when the students errs, and then moves on to more advanced steps. Wouldn't such an approach not only help to improve programs, but make for more successful, saleable ones?
We non-experts continue to ask, "Why can't you just tell us what to DO, instead of the emphasis on Help programs (an admission that the presentation is lacking), and FAQ's which authors naively think that us users are going to wade through every time the instructions fail to do their job?" It amazes us that computer people seemingly forget that computer use at any level of expertise is pressing a key or a combination of keys and that therefore a computer is a DO machine.
In short, we want two-way DO software. Why not? Well-designed software would make it possible to capitalize on a largely ignored adage, "We learn by DOing." As Aldous Huxley said, "The great end of life in not knowledge, but action." Such action has the potential for a dramatic improvement for both communication and sales.
What's in for me? Satisfaction will make a nice aperitif, but even though I'm retired, I still want to learn. I can't understand why owners and publishers employ authors who, like all too many teachers, think that all they have to do is to spit out information, that they don't have to check to see if we understand. I'm tired of being frustrated; I and many others want two-way DO software that is carefully designed and user tested, software that will tell me what to DO, starting with the most basic thing/s, correcting me when I err, and then moving on to the more advanced steps. Give me that then this professional bellyacher will stop complaining.
Yours,
Jack Albertson, SkilledTeachers@aol.com