On the other hand, there are so many people who rely on "easy" interfaces every day whose productivity could be increased dramatically by learning the tools just a bit better. Think of how many people hunt-and-peck on their keyboards. Some of these people have been hunting and pecking for twenty, thirty or more years of typing every day (I work in a school---it's embarrassing to watch so many teachers do this day in and day out). You don't always have to become a "guru" to get something significant out of having put in a little effort learning your tools.
Your comment makes me think of how short-sighted laziness is endemic or maybe engrained on a cultural level. Or even worse, it's a natural part of our decision-making processes, but I really think culture can overcome it.
Solving the problem of people never learning "one thing" to save hundreds of wasted hours over the years is akin to solving the obesity problem in America. Everybody that is obese knows already that obesity is a health problem, but it takes that little bit of effort to start making it pay off, and nobody has the time/desire to put in that little bit of effort. Meanwhile massive societal forces conspire to both make people overeat and stay inactive, just as they keep them from taking the time to learn new things about their software and work processes.
The reason I think culture and education can overcome these forces is because of another comparable societal problem: the campaign to end smoking actually has gotten a large percentage of Americans, especially youth, to get over that hump or even better never start at all. It took massive investment in public education and time for it to propagate through a generation. So, these are cultural problems: we have a failure to motivate people to explore new computer skills.
True; some people haven't even learned to use search/replace properly, let alone macros in their word processing tool.
Some tasks they spent hours or days on could be done in a few minutes, given just a little bit knowledge.
Then again. Does Joe Sixpack benefit from being more productive? After all, usually they aren't paid more when they do more work, so there isn't that much incentive...
> Then again. Does Joe Sixpack benefit from being more productive? After all, usually they aren't paid more when they do more work, so there isn't that much incentive...
My initial reaction to this was: of course! Doesn't everyone benefit from spending less time doing repetitive, thoughtless tasks at work? (even if they don't use the extra time to produce more output for their employer?) But you're right: the evidence is pretty overwhelming that either this isn't true, or it's true but most people don't care or realize it.
Most people don't have their performance or efficiency being monitored or have any internal/external motivation to improve that efficiency.
That's one of the things I enjoy most as a programmer is having the tools to easily monitor my output (LOC per day or something) but also the power to improve or create better tools.
I don't think the solution to this is to make hunt and peck typing impossible, whether by removing the labels on the keys, making the keyboard invisible, or what have you. People won't learn touch typing as a result, most will instead just not use the tool at all, instead of using it sub optimally. "Gee, my life would be a lot better if I tried this e-mail thing instead of calling people all the time. Oh, it's too hard for me to type, because I can't hunt and peck?" Give up
Which is why it should be taught in school. It took me two weeks to learn to type in my late twenties. It's not like you'd ever forget the skill--or have the opportunity to forget with all the homework that needs to be done.
Is there any research about the keyboard issue? Sometimes I suspect that it is simply impossible for adults to learn touch-typing naturally the same way I did as a child (ie, simply by telling myself 'don't look at the keyboard'). Or maybe it's that they never engage in the activities that really force people to become fast typists (in my case, probably IRC) and perhaps never will.
I only learned to touch-type in my late twenties. It took my about two weeks of practising with gtypist for 20-30 minutes a day. I only type about 50-60wpm when I push myself (usually quite less), but even if you can only type 30wpm it's still an enormous improvement over hunt-and-pecking. It makes me cringe to think they're "teaching" MSOffice to school kids but can't be bothered to teach them basic typing skills.
