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Posted by Scott Ellsworth on 04/17/06 23:11
In article <o52742d38vudq0408cjdvdh7av6h24mgcb@4ax.com>,
Steve House <filmmaker.remove@this.cogeco.ca> wrote:
> "Professional" is a matter of attitude rather than pay or whether one
> does it for a source of income.
Without getting into semantics, there seems to be an operational
definition of an app targeted for professional users.
Most of the vendors of pro-tour video gear and software assume that
professionals are willing to pay fairly large amounts of money, and
spend fairly large amounts of time, because the target's income depends
on the product. Thus, ease of use often takes a back seat to
functionality.
For example: photoshop has whole courses devoted to it, and buying it
will do severe damage to a thousand dollar bill, but professionals keep
buying it. Their businesses usually produce enough to afford it, when
amortized over a year. A home user, on the other hand, is less likely
to just write off that cost as part of doing business.
Put another way, in a pro app, you can assume that a user will spend a
day figuring out your workflow system. In a consumer app, you often
have to assume that they will only spend a few minutes, and thus you
need to get _something_ out of it _right away_.
The prosumer (and I hate that word very much) market seems to focus on
taking the low hanging fruit from the pro apps, and moving them to the
consumer apps after some careful UI engineering. Thus, a consumer app
gets a feature beyond most casual users, but with an interface such that
they will not likely screw up their project.
A fraction of the hobbyist market is often _more_ concerned with getting
'it' done right, because it is a labor of love. Another fraction is
less, because they are not burdened with excess time to work.
Scott
--
Scott Ellsworth
scott@alodar.nospam.com
Java and database consulting for the life sciences
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