"The purpose of computer metaphors, in general, and particularly of graphical or icon-oriented ones, is to let people use recognition rather than recall. People are good at recognition, but tend to be poor at recall."
"... we chose a two-button mouse because, in testing, we found that users demonstrated lower error rates, shorter learning times, and less confusion than when they used either one-button or three-button mice."
- David E. Liddle
Recognition is better because people can manipulate things to figure out what they did before, or simply look at icons and recognize their functionality (digitized affordances?). Remembering text commands is a pain.
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