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With Ted's permission to repost the following:

-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Ashton [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2000 2:12 PM
To: Stigers, Greg [And]
Subject: Re: "Enhancing the HP e3000 User Interface White Paper" Link on
J AZZ

Greg,
  I'm still chewing on it a little, but I think that it does belong on the
list.  What you've said is worth saying and thinking about.

Thanks,
Ted

-----Original Message-----
From: Stigers, Greg [And]
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2000 1:07 PM
To: 'Ted Ashton'
Subject: RE: "Enhancing the HP e3000 User Interface White Paper" Link on
JAZZ

And somebody had to respond... even if I only state the obvious. You tell me
if you think that this belongs on list or not.

Robust in the sense of "strongly formed or constructed", where the form is
not necessarily any more reliable. I think Jeff used robust with
user-friendly deliberately. The strong form is the familiar, the (user)
friendly face that they have seen before.

This is in defense of a common user interface, which is not necessarily a
GUI. One can configure a recognizable drop down list and most any other
Windows primitive with the available character set. We who are more
analytical than the average bear are more likely to appreciate and
understand this familiarity, and see co-workers stumble around blindly
before what is to us and what should be to them a familiar interface.
Nevertheless, the hope is that the light will dawn, and they will recognize
now what they have certainly seen before, and be able to navigate what may
in the particulars be new or unfamiliar, correctly reasoning by analogy with
all that they already know. Then, once the task becomes familiar, the ease
of navigation is still an advantage, however slight, over more fixed-form
interfaces.

The goal is that instead of being presented with a screen of
fill-in-the-blanks, where there are obvious edits on certain fields (dates
and states are two relatively stable examples), it becomes clear where one
chooses from the more constrained options to the more free formed ones (such
as name or address), and how to navigate from field to field, perhaps out of
the defined order when advantageous.

Sadly, the pretty face is easier to sell, because it is expected, regardless
of any more thoughtful evaluations of what matters. I can only hope that the
day dawns soon when 3000 apps with a pretty face can be sold, and buyers
care little about what is "under the hood" or in the back office, than they
care about how their drinking water is purified, their electricity
generated, or their gasoline formulated.

Greg Stigers
http://www.cgiusa.com