科技世界中的用戶習慣不好惹

Babies think in logs. In logarithmic scales, that is. This means that newborns are able to notice when an image of eight ducks on a screen switches to an image of 16 ducks. We notice they notice because when the switch happens to the larger flock, there’s an observable spike in activity in the parietal lobe of a baby’s brain.

嬰兒的思維模式是對數式的，也就是以對數尺度思考。這意味着，當屏幕上一張8只鴨子的圖像換成16只鴨子的圖像時，新生兒能發現。我們發現他們能發現，是因爲當畫面換到較多動物的圖片時，嬰兒大腦頂葉活動出現了顯著加劇。

This isn’t just about babies noticing that something has changed — a switch on the screen between eight ducks and eight trucks lights up a different region of the brain. That babies can clock a large percentage increase in quantity, such as 100 per cent in the case of the ducks, but not a small one (say, between eight and nine ducks) is what defines their innate sense of numbers as logarithmic rather than linear. In contrast, integers, and the linear scale we place them on, is something that we have to learn by rote when our parents teach us how to count. It’s a cultural construct.

這不僅意味着嬰兒能注意到事物的變化，屏幕上由8只鴨子到8輛卡車的轉換，點亮了大腦不同區域。嬰兒能發現數量的大比例增加（在鴨子的例子中增量爲100%），但發現不了數量的小比例增加（比如由8只鴨子變換成9只鴨子），說明他們對數字的先天認知是對數式、而不是線性的。相比之下，整數，以及我們強加於整數的線性標尺，都是當我們的父母教我們如何數數時，我們靠死記硬背才學到的。這屬於文化構建。

All of which makes me wonder, how would babies use a laptop? I recently bought a MacBook for the first time and trying to work with its default settings makes me feel positively infantile. There is a genuine possibility that a three-month-old would be better at handling its trackpad, with its “natural scrolling”, than I am.

這一切讓我不禁好奇，嬰兒會怎樣使用筆記本電腦呢？我最近購置了生平第一臺MacBook，在嘗試使用它的默認模式時，我覺得自己十足像個嬰兒。三個月大的嬰兒操作起它的“自然滾動”式觸控板，真有可能比我強。

Unlike the operation of a track wheel on a mouse, reading an article from top to bottom on the Mactraption requires an upwards movement on the trackpad instead of a downwards one. Is Apple right when it says that this method, which mimics how navigation works on touchscreen devices, is “natural”? And if so, does that mean that at some point on the path to adulthood I lost my innate understanding of how to scroll?

從上到下讀一篇文章，需要向下滑動鼠標上的滾輪，使用MacBook操作方法卻不同，需要在觸控板上向上滑動。蘋果(Apple)解釋說，這種方法模仿了在觸控屏上導航的操作原理，稱它是“自然”的，這麼說對嗎？如果對的話，這是否意味着在成長之路的某個時刻，我喪失了對如何滾動的先天認知？

When natural scroll was introduced to Mac computers in 2011 some people were happy, others were a bit “meh” and some were properly cross. If I had a Mac at the time I probably would have been in that last group but it couldn’t have been as bad as when Microsoft removed the start menu in its Windows 8 operating system in 2012. That blunder deserves a spot next to “New Coke”.

當Mac電腦於2011年引入自然滾動操作法時，有些人感到很高興，有些人有點無所謂，還有些人完全反對。如果當時我也有臺Mac，我多半屬於最後一組人，但以糟糕程度來論，它比不上2012年微軟(Microsoft)在Windows 8操作系統中刪除開始菜單。這一錯誤在排行榜上的位置僅次於“新可樂”。

As it turns out, a paper published in 2013 by Jing Chen and Robert W Proctor lends support to Apple’s choice. The researchers’ experiments measured the performance of test subjects when they used natural scrolling and also when they used the more traditional computer scrolling method. In almost all cases, subjects performed set tasks faster with natural scrolling. Matching one’s finger movement with the direction the content travels on the screen does appear to be better.

結果，2013年Jing Chen和羅伯特•W•普羅克特(Robert W Proctor)發表的一篇論文支持了蘋果的選擇。兩位研究人員通過實驗，測試了實驗對象分別在使用自然滾動法以及較傳統的計算機滾動操作法時的表現。幾乎所有情況下，受試者使用自然滾動法時設置任務都要更快。手指移動方向與屏幕內容移動方向保持一致，看來確實表現更好。

So that’s the science I ignored by switching off natural scrolling on my MacBook. As was the case with Windows 8, I needed some apps to correct the situation. It’s a testament to the modern world that whenever a big software company makes user experience decisions that some cabal of people (hello!) don’t like, there is an app developer standing by to make it all better. All hail app developers! (In case you are wondering: an app called Start8 adds back the Windows start menu and ModernMix forces Windows 8 apps to run in windows with a close button and stuff.)

所以，當我關掉MacBook上的自然滾動功能時，是忽略了上述科學原理。而在Windows 8的例子裏，我需要一些應用(app)來進行糾正。這證明，在現代世界，每當一個大型軟件公司作出關乎用戶體驗的新決定，而遭到一小撮人（比如我）的反對時，就有一個應用程序開發者準備讓一切變得更好。應用程序開發人員萬歲！（如果你好奇的話：Start8應用程序能加回Windows開始菜單，ModernMix能讓Windows 8應用程序以窗口形式運行，並有一個關閉按鈕，諸如此類。）

Funnily enough, the app that rode to the rescue in the Mac situation was created by the developer Nick Moore, who wanted to be able to use natural scrolling in older operating systems. Bless him, he also made it possible to use natural scrolling on the trackpad while simultaneously allowing an old fogey to scroll on a mouse. Just what I needed!

相當有趣的是，在Mac的例子中，趕來救援的應用正是開發者尼克•摩爾(Nick Moore)研發的，他希望能在舊式操作系統上使用自然滾動。多虧了他，人們可以在觸控板上使用自然滾動的同時，還允許一個老頑固使用滾輪鼠標。這纔是我需要的！

Scrolling isn’t the only thing where our preferences for visual frames of reference differ. In first-person computer games, one moves the mouse to the right to look right and left to look left but what to do with the mouse if you need to look up? Moving it away from you is the norm, but some prefer to “invert the Y-axis” — pulling the mouse towards them to look up. Where a game doesn’t allow inversion, there is typically, of course, an app to fix that.

滾動不是區別我們視覺參照系偏好的唯一事物。在第一人稱電腦遊戲中，玩家將鼠標向右移動，視角便轉向右方，鼠標向左移動，視角便轉向左方，但假如你需要仰視，該怎麼操作鼠標？將鼠標向外移動是正常現象，但有些人喜歡“反轉Y軸”—— 將鼠標向內移動以獲取仰視視角。如果一個遊戲不允許反轉Y軸（常有發生），自然會有個應用來解決這個問題。

Concerning our preference for numbers, a more recent study seems to show that even as adults, we may retain some instinct for the logarithmic number sense we had as babies. Even if that’s true, there is no escaping the linear world once you inhabit it. For once, there is no app for that. But thank goodness for the apps that fix everything else, whether our preferences are natural or not.

就我們對數字的偏好而言，最近的一項研究似乎證明，即使我們已經成年，可能仍保留着一些嬰兒時期擁有的對數意識本能。即使這是真的，一旦你進入線性世界，就再也找不到出口。這一次，沒有應用來拯救你。但多虧了那些應用解決了其他一切問題，無論我們的偏好是否與生俱來。