I guess what's going on here, the reason people are divided, is that on software that you dislike (or are forced to use) people generally hate settings and just want the thing to work. On software that people love (like a piece of software that helps you make music or edit video) then people generally enjoy being able to customize it further and further.
> I guess what's going on here, the reason people are divided, is that on software that you dislike (or are forced to use) people generally hate settings and just want the thing to work. On software that people love (like a piece of software that helps you make music or edit video) then people generally enjoy being able to customize it further and further.
I don't think that's quite it. I think the ability to set the software to work the way you want it to can turn a piece of software from one you dislike into one you love. [EDIT:] Or, vice versa, the lack of the ability to do so can turn a piece of software from one you would have loved into one you dislike. [/EDIT]
Nope. Two of my favourite pieces of software have very few settings because they remember what I do instead of forcing me to go and figure out a setting for it.
Could you explain that? Software that tries to interpret what users are doing and then tries to adapt to itself is on a slippery slope. The first steps in that direction, like a history of visited sites, or recently edited files menu are uncontroversial. But when it moves menu entries around to optimize for assumed workflow of the user, that user gets infuriated very fast.
Software that I cannot adapt to my needs is like an interactive tv. Ultimately I have no control over what is happening. Software that I can adapt to my needs puts the personal in Personal Computer.
Simple example: I used to be the maintainer of Dia, a diagramming program. It remembers what colours, line width, dash style etc you've last used, so you don't have to keep setting that. This can drastically reduce the number of steps needed per desired action, and reduces frustration, but it would not be great in a separate generic settings windows.
Thinking of my users (including myself) as goldfish is useful: if you've just done a thing, it's likely you'll do it again.
