DO YOU WANT
FRIES WITH THAT?
 A
level of challenge that is appropriate to the
user’s skill. For some software application
designers, this translates as adapting
to users and their changing needs. This
might mean abandoning the idea of the one giant application
that works for everyone.
The range of users out there has broadened
significantly over the years. It may
be more practical to create multiple versions of
an application rather than a single release that
adapts to the user’s skill level by reading
mouse clicks like they were tea leaves.
A good computer game method of
adapting to users is to look the other way when
players use cheat codes. Most
games have cheat codes that
enable players to modify the way a game plays.
The multiple forms these cheats take, like "extra
lives," "extra ammo," "God
mode" – these give the
player opportunities to set
the challenge of the game themselves, to
exactly what they want at any given moment, no
questions asked.
Cheat codes are
not packaged with the game, but they can be found
on the net almost immediately after the game is
published, sometimes prior to the official
release date. In fact, game
publishers put them out there to be found. Game
creators would prefer that you experience the
game in the manner they intended, but they are
sympathetic to the players’ desires. If you
feel that a game is too difficult for you, or if
you wish to handicap yourself or someone else in a
multi-player game, you can use cheat
codes to do it.
A
social form of adapting to the user is admitting
when you’re wrong.
This is pretty simple. You think
you’re protecting your own interest
by not admitting to your partner that
you’ve done something wrong or
stupid. Well, you’re
not doing yourself any favor. You’re
just making the challenge harder for your
partner. They already know you’ve
done something stupid and wrong and the
challenge of forcing you to admit it is a
lot of hassle. So, hey, throw up your
hands and admit
what you’ve done or haven’t
done. Life will be easier for everyone.
SPEAKING OF CHEATS!
If you haven't already found it, at
the bottom left
corner of every page
is an invisible hot spot that will link
you to a secret maze.
This version of the maze has links to
nearly every page in the presentation, so
you can jump to
wherever you want to go! (It
also gives you a pretty good idea of the
solution to the maze!)
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In
tool-like applications the equivalent is manual and/or auto-customization.
Manual customization, for instance, would
be the ability of the user to show and hide
various toolbars and buttons to suit their needs.
Auto-customization is a relatively new
concept in this arena. It works great in video
games, but there may just be too many different
types of users for that strategy to work for
tools.
Only time will tell how
software tools will best manage setting the level
of "challenge" to match users' skills.
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