It's always refreshing to know that the folks working on some of the highest profile open source projects realize that they (well, "we") live in our own bubble:
You and I are nothing like the overwhelming majority of browser users. Nothing. Most browser users (approaching a billion of them) don't need or want all kinds of configuration and control. They want to get on the web, take care of what they got on to do, and get off -- without difficulty, and most important, without having to learn new features to accomplish that. They understand the basics of entering addresses, clicking links, adding pages to their bookmarks/favorites, using the primary five buttons, and that's about it. They're not interested in learning a whole lot more. They want it to "just work".
Read the whole post on Asa's blog.
Posted by jzawodn at June 09, 2005 07:30 AM
Not quite correct. A large majority of the browser users I know (i.e., spouse, parents, friends) have no idea what a "bookmark" is, nor do they know the "five buttons." Some of them have figured out "Back," but most of the rest are mysteries. If they need to go to the home page, they close the browser and restart it. Usually, however, they click a link in an e-mail (any link, from anyone) or on another web page, or they manually enter an address "in that little box in the middle."
Fair enough. The threshold is probably even lower than most of us imagine.
Heh. Mentioned this to my wife this morning, and she said, "Bookmarks? They would make my life SO much easier!"
Another thing that I need to keep reminding myself is that most people do not care about (or even know about) the value of standards-based software and data formats. We need to get the word out to normal people that their software and data-format choices can affect the future of computing in general.
