Kapor: Computers Must Be Easier To Use

Technologies

Kapor: Computers Must Be Easier To Use

June Gross
Computer Reseller News

May 22, 1989

BOSTON - Software seer Mitch Kapor, chairman of On Technology Inc., recently found himself with a broad-based platform for his views about how difficult it is to use personal computers.

The founder of Lotus Development Corp. and developer of the DOS operating system's first blockbuster application, Kapor played the iconoclast as guest lecturer at the prestigious Ford Hall Forum lecture series here.

The lecture was another whistle-stop for advancing his view that personal computers lack the necessary ease of use in spite of Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh, the mouse, the user interface and numerous other innovations.

"The way computers are today, you have to come down to the computer's level rather than the computer coming to your level. It's very frustrating. They're astonishingly literal," Kapor said.

The industry's current fixation on standards is overshadowing ease-of-use issues, which are being ignored at the industry's peril, Kapor said.

All too often users blame themselves for their inability to get a computer or application to work. Kapor would like to see the responsibility shifted to the vendors.

"The problem is that the technology is so primitive that we are forced to dehumanize ourselves to use it," Kapor said. "If you find this happening to you, stand up and yell about it.

"I think the people that are designing and building [computer products! should take responsibility for this," Kapor said.

Kapor, who played a key role in the acceptance of DOS and IBM Corp.'s PC through the success of Lotus 1-2-3, said he is a frequent-and frustrated-personal-computer user.

"At least once a week I want to pick up the personal computer and throw it out the window," Kapor said. "How can something so useful be so infuriating?"

Kapor used his own 1-2-3 as an example of an application of a software program that once provided state-of-the-industry ease of use, but now has lost its edge.

"1-2-3 not only pushed performance, it also took ease of use into a new dimension," Kapor said.

Kapor started to change his mind about it one day when he worked a technical support line at Lotus and a woman called to complain that she was being forced to learn and use 1-2-3 on her job.

"1-2-3 has degenerated into an everyday number cruncher," Kapor said. "All incentives to push the product have been sucked out. It's turning people into keypunch operators."

In his remarks, Kapor said that some vendors are secretly happy if users are lost and confused about computers. Such vendors, he said, see their opportunities in maintaining the hierarchies of the past, when the initiated few could effectively control the use of computing power.

While many may have lost or misplaced the original vision of what personal computers can do, Kapor said he believes that applications should stir people's passions and make computers more accessible and fun.

These qualities are best exemplified now in Macintosh, Kapor said, although "in a lot of ways it falls short and in a lot of ways it is not competitive."

OS/2 has its problems in terms of ease of use because it did not evolve from a vision and a basic consistency implementing the vision, as did the Macintosh, Kapor said.

"[OS/2! looks like it was designed by a committee. Its pieces don't fit together," said Kapor. "But, possibly, it will succeed, even if no one really likes it."

The IBM and Microsoft Corp. effort is being further hamstrung by compatibility issues. Upward compatibility with DOS and IBM's need for compatibility with its product line is creating fundamental trade-offs in designing for the OS/2 platform.

Apple was free to break new ground with the Macintosh because it did not need to be compatible with what came before.

"What is called for is a statesmanlike gesture that we need to rethink design issues in order to make computers really easy to use," Kapor said. "My only hope is that Microsoft and IBM both rethink design issues."

In order to further ease of use, vendors must also be aware of the issue of speed, said Kapor. "A fast program is a responsive program. It not only saves time, it also saves psychic energy. A whole train of thought can be derailed by a slow program," he said.

Founded in 1908, the Ford Hall Forums have hosted Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Frost, Margaret Mead, Henry Kissinger and Buckminster Fuller. It is the oldest continual lecture series in the country.