The Daddy Of The Mac

October 15, 2011 3:29 PM

Folklore.org is a brief history of the development of the Macintosh computer in 119 stories. (previously, previously, previously, previously)

The venerated Steve Jobs is The Father Of The Macintosh. This narrative adds some dimension to his complex personality.

posted by ovvl (3 comments total)

(previously, previously, previously, previously)

So this is a quintuple, you're saying?
posted by Horace Rumpole at 3:42 PM on October 15, 2011

Good to see it again.
posted by Trurl at 4:01 PM on October 15, 2011

My favorite from the ones I've seen:

Starting in the summer of 1981, Larry [Tesler] organized a series of user tests of the nascent Lisa software, recruiting friends and family to try out the software for the first time, while being observed by the Apple designers who recorded their reactions.

The user tests were conducted in a specially constructed room featuring a one-way mirror, so observers could watch the tests without being intrusive. The tests were conducted by a moderator who made sure the user felt comfortable and showed her the basics of using a mouse. Then, with no further instruction, users were asked to perform specific tasks, without help from the moderator, like editing some text and saving it. The moderator encouraged each user to mumble under her breath while doing the tasks, revealing her current thinking as much as possible. Each session was audio or videotaped for later analysis.

When the software required confirmation from the user, it displayed a small window called a "dialog box", that contained a question, and presented two buttons, for positive or negative confirmation. The buttons were labeled "Do It" and "Cancel". The designers observed that a few users seemed to stumble at the point that the dialog was displayed, clicking "Cancel" when they should have clicked "Do It", but it wasn't clear what they were having trouble with.

Finally, the team noticed one user that was particularly flummoxed by the dialog box, who even seemed to be getting a bit angry. The moderator interrupted the test and asked him what the problem was. He replied, "I'm not a dolt, why is the software calling me a dolt?"

It turns out he wasn't noticing the space between the 'o' and the 'I' in 'Do It'; in the sans-serif system font we were using, a capital 'I' looked very much like a lower case 'l', so he was reading 'Do It' as 'Dolt' and was therefore kind of offended.

After a bit of consideration, we switched the positive confirmation button label to 'OK' (which was initially avoided, because we thought it was too colloquial), and from that point on people seemed to have fewer problems.

posted by Rhaomi at 4:17 PM on October 15, 2011