[Python-ideas] Objectively Quantifying Readability
Steven D'Aprano
steve at pearwood.info
Tue May 1 15:08:41 EDT 2018
On Tue, May 01, 2018 at 03:02:27PM +0000, Dan Sommers wrote:
> >> I happen to be an excellent judge of whether a given block of code is
> >> readable to me.
>
> > In the same way that 93% of people say that they are an above-average
> > driver, I'm sure that most people think that they are an excellent
> > judge of readability. Including myself in *both* of those.
>
> Are you claiming that I'm not an excellent judge of whether a given
> block of code is readable to me?
Of course not. I don't know you. I wouldn't dream of making *specific*
claims about you. I speak only in broad generalities which apply to
people in general.
I'm reminded that in the 1990s during the UI wars between Apple and
Microsoft, people had *really strong* opinions about the useability of
the two OSes' GUIs. Macs required the user to use the mouse to navigate
menus, while Windows also allowed the use to navigate them using the Alt
key and arrow keys.
Not surprisingly, *both* Mac users and Windows users were absolutely
convinced that they were much more efficient using the method they were
familiar with, and could justify their judgement. For example, Windows
users typically said that having to move their hand from the keyboard to
grab the mouse was slow and inefficient, and using the Alt key and
arrows was much faster.
But when researchers observed users in action, and timed how long it
took them to perform simple tasks requiring navigating the menus, they
found that using the mouse was significantly faster for *both* groups of
users, both Windows and Mac users.
The difference was that when Windows users used the mouse, even though
they were *objectively* faster to complete the task compared to using
the arrow keys, subjectively they swore that they were slower, and were
*very confident* about their subjective experience.
This is a good example of the overconfidence effect:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect
This shouldn't be read as a tale about Mac users being superior. One of
the two methods had to be faster, and it happened to be Macs. My point
is not about Macs versus Windows, but that people in general are not
good at this sort of self-reflection.
Another example of this is the way that the best professional athletes
no longer rely on their own self-judgement about the best training
methods to use, because the training techniques that athletes think are
effective, and those which actually are effective, are not strongly
correlated.
Athletes are not great judges of what training works for themselves.
The psychological processes that lead to these cognitive biases apply to
us all, to some degree or another.
Aside from you and me, of course.
--
Steve
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