Friday, October 15, 2010

Change Thyself

It's very difficult to change people, mainly because of the baggage that they carry as habits. This included me also. I went to a restaurant and started eating a dish a particular way. Every time I would go about it the same way, till I stumbled upon another option. Then I realized how much a victim of my habits am I.

This is where software helps. For example say you are using a particular version of MS Office and somebody else on the other side of the planet is also using the same version. Well the common thread that runs is the same user interface. If you speak of a macro that both have used, they both understand it. (if language also is the same)

At the other end is personalization. We cut and chop and make personalized dashboards or other gizmos catering to our taste. This is our habit compatible. In fact, this is required but not always mandatory. As an example take Mozilla Firefox which has skins. The default skin is quite pleasing, but for the habit people, they keep changing skins till they discover that the default was pretty much it.

I'm not against personalization or for rigid standards. Both are required in a 50:50 way for a normal user. Aah, that's hard to define – who is a normal user ? I would say, a clear person as far as dianetics is concerned. The average Joe or the moderate Stan. A person who is willing to change his views as far as values are not under consideration.

Cheers,

Guru30

1 comment:

Anand BK said...

The story will be same for Gizmos(habits,....) even if it is of default one or personalized one. We need to see the story behind it rather than other way around.