User Friendliness Acid Test

Every time we get it idiot-proofed, Ma Nature produces cleverer idiots.

- Robin Kinkead

Last weekend I attended Manifest, an event for otaku. My sister and I went to see the cosplaying competition, where participants dressed as their favourite anime/computer game characters. The organisers were thoughtful enough to include a picture of the character being cosplayed, and not surprisingly this was done in MS Powerpoint 2007.

In the middle of the competition, the assistant controlling the slides advanced one too many slides and skipped one group of entrants. The mistake was quickly discovered and the assistant attempted to go back one slide. Instead he advanced another slide. Further attempts to go back only resulted in the presentation moving forward, until someone decided to exit the fullscreen mode. The right slide was then located, but somehow no one could figure out how to return to fullscreen, even though there were 5 staff surrounding the computer, one of whom supposed to be in charge of all the technical stuff.

I found the situation very strange, because from what I could gather online, the new Office 2007 is supposed to be very intuitive and user-friendly. Its new toolbar replacement, known as the Ribbon, should practically eliminate the learning curve for new and old users.

The problem was eventually resolved when a member of the audience stepped forward and demonstrated his "expertise" in entering fullscreen mode in Powerpoint. I was left pondering whether it is the software not being user-friendly enough, or the users not competent enough.