>We're probably going to have to agree to disagree here- I think that our difference of opinion is a difference in philosophy. My philosophy is that the way that people get comfortable with 'computers' is by getting used to patterns in software.

I'm jumping in in the middle of the thread and haven't read everything above. But I agree with you here. I highly recommend to anyone interested in interfaces (and actually to anyone writing applications that have user interfaces < g >) the following book: GUI Bloopers: Don'ts and Do's for Software Developers and Web Designers by Jeff Johnson (Morgan Kaufmann).

He makes your point and many, many more about the difference between a good interface and a bad one. Best of all, it's a very readable book.

Tamar