Fear and loathing at the command line 16 Oct 2007

Bruce Byfield has posted an interested article on the command line interface:

"The early days of the personal computers, when users were explorers of new territory are long gone. Now, the permanent settlers have moved in. The average computer user is no longer interested in exploration, but in getting their daily tasks done with as little effort as possible. For many, changing word processors is a large step, let alone changing interfaces. And both Windows and OS X encourage this over-cautious clinging to the familiar by hiding the command line away and promoting the idea that everything you need to do you can do from the desktop. The truth, of course, is that you can almost always do less from a desktop application than its command line equivalent, but the average user has no experience that would help them understand that."

This, of course, begs the following question: If users are more productive and efficient when using a command line interface, why do they prefer to work with the comparatively-clunky desktop interface instead? Byfield explains this behavior like so:

"Learning the command line is like learning to touch-type: in return for enduring the slowness and repetitiousness of learning, you gain expertise and efficiency. By contrast, using a graphical desktop is like two-fingered typing: you can learn it quickly, but you don't progress very fast or far. To someone interested in results, the superiority of the command line seems obvious, but, when instant gratification and fashion is your priority, the desktop's superiority seems equally obvious."

We're not sure Byfield's entirely right here. It seems to us that the average user's reluctance to engage with the command line interface is less to do with a desire for instant gratification and fashion, and more likely a result of "satisficing" - the phenomena that describes our innate human tendency to prefer simple solutions that provide adequate results over complex solutions that provide optimal results. For the majority of users, the desktop provides an easy-to-learn means of accomplishing all of the tasks they need to perform on a day-to-day basis to a satisfactory standard - and that's good enough. Investing the time required to learn the obscure syntax of the command line interface - an interface that would only allow them to get things done a little better and a little faster - just doesn't seem worth the effort in comparison.