[NatCh]

Originally Posted by alex_d

But if in the development of all the software for the Reader it came down to not finding a couple of man weeks for search... then those guys must have had serious problems.

Like I said, that was just an example of a reason, not the one that I thought was most likely, just the first one that came to me (not usually my best notions, as it happens ).

One thing my programming experience has taught me is that there are almost always reasons.

Back when I was just starting to do this full-time, my attitude was, well if we can do it, and folks are asking for it, then why not do it? In my case, the answers were usually something along the lines of, that's the user's responsibility to keep up with, and we don't want to get into doing the users' scut-work when we have our own responsibilities to take care of -- kind of an "if we go there, we'll have to live there" situation. The reasons that we didn't want to expand our scope to discharge our users' unrelated responsibilities are legion, and I won't go into them, but the chief is probably that a lot of them have M.D. and Ph.D. after their names, often a mark of the most arrogant of all creatures. They fall into the give an inch they'll take a parsec category.

Originally Posted by alex_d

I do think they just tried copying the iPod.

I think you may be onto something there ... patterning after the iPod's concept, at any rate. One of its hallmarks is its simplicity, and they do seem to have aimed for that. I think it might be because more folks complain about things being too complex than too simple.

For my part, I like the simplicity.

Originally Posted by alex_d

With that in mind, I can actually see how staying faithful to the vertical-list scheme can make simple functions like search cumbersome.

See, now you're coming up with perfectly reasonable possible motivations for the decision! Excellent, I figured you'd be able to if you stopped and thought about it. (sorry I couldn't resist )

Originally Posted by alex_d

You know, it's a pet theory of mine that the Flynn Effect is caused by people having to work with a larger number of more complex tools. Although you may not like sophisticated UIs, your children (and probably you yourself) just might get smarter figuring them out.

Interesting idea, I hadn't heard of the Flynn Effect, and I'm glad to know about it (thanks for the reference, BTW ).

Also as an aside, I do like sophisticated UI's, so long as they aren't just being complistic. (complicated for the sake of being complicated -- my own word, the opposite of 'simplistic') If the complexity is needed, then bring it on, if it's not ... well, I've got enough complicated things to be getting on with, so ....

Just at first glace (all I've had time for, you know), I'd say you're probably onto something there -- my wife and her family and I were recently discussing some studies that showed that older folks (her grandma recently died at 96) stay mentally more facile when they keep learning new things, keeps the brain flexible. That seems to be a clear micro-correlation with this effect. And I'd tend to agree with you that dealing with increasingly complex things probably adds to it.

Where I'd disagree, however, is with the idea I infer (not imply -- pet peeve, sorry) from your statement, namely that it's therefore good to make things complicated 'cause it'll make us all smarter. I think life gets unavoidably complicated enough on its own these days without adding to it deliberately. But of course that's just my take on it.