So people didn't understand my gaming reference, heh. If I could place bets on aspects of my posts that people won't understand, I could buy some nice stuff.
I usually know when I should go into more detail about something, but it pains me to always have to explain things (it takes lots of time and space). Let this be a lesson to never say "this" (it's almost never good to use "this", I find; being specific is so much more clear, although usually, you can get rid of many instances of "this" if you just write better, but that takes time. Pay me to write better and I will.
In fact, soon you'll be able to do that.
).
Anyway, let me explain….
To recap, I said:
The second mistake I see is that they don't really let you scan through the content at will to actually get an in-depth look at it. Games do this, and it's a big mistake and partly why adults don't really take games seriously. Books and online articles don't do this (let's not get into the articles that split a single article into multiple pages), and they seem pretty popular.
So I'm saying that books are great, because you can easily flip through them. Games are not, because they force you to (usually) go through a set series of levels--a set progression through pre-defined content or systems. This creates an unnecessary barrier to the game content, and adults who usually have lots going on (families, business, interesting projects) don't have time, or at least, don't really want to be forced to play a game with imposed limitations.
To be sure, games and books are almost always better when read linearly (Photoreaders, please stay out of this for the moment
), but books give you this option
and plenty more. Games put barriers in front of you, much like ToolsForLife, and it makes me much less interested in using the site.
Brutha, who has a similar system-design-type background to me, seems as frustrated as I am with unnecessary barriers ToolsToLife throws at you. Whether you can get through them or not, it's such common sense to not have them (ok, I'm biased, but meh) that it blows my mind that such barriers would remain on the site. Heck, I'm designing a site right now and already in it's prototype form, it has better usability design than a site that's in beta. (People like to throw around "Beta" too much these days. Ok, so you're site isn't finished. Why not finish certain critical elements of it before you do other things, or hire people to do it? If you're broke, fair enough. If you're not, you confuse me.)
Maybe it's just not obvious to non-individualiser, non-maximier types that one should outsource what you're not good at to somebody who is or learn how to do it at least semi-decently before you expose people to mediocrity, but I'd say that's no excuse. I'm being critical here, but with system design, there's good reason to be. Every second of time you waste on a poorly designed system that could be pretty easily designed to be better is wasted human potential. I'm not kidding.