The other day I read an astounding news article that was in the Guardian newspaper. It revealed that PCs baffle 50% of adults in Britain. I thought that it was just my mum, but it turns out that it is in reality an epidemic. According to the survey carried out by Which? magazine, in January 2007, half of all adults “feel overwhelmed by new technology and struggle to understand the jargon”. That’s not the end of it, “56% of over-65s were ‘voluntarily excluding’ themselves from utilizing the internet.

The source of this problem might be because of a shortage of IT courses on offer – although I am constantly spotting free IT courses in local libraries. In fact, I reckon that it is the design of the PC that might be mainly responsible. PC applications are typically designed by young people, for young people.

Possibly in the next few years the likes of Windows and OSX will have versions in a highly simplified format. This could include reduced menus that contained terms that were easy to understand. In the early 90s I remember that my Apple computer came with a training application called ‘Macintosh Basics’. It taught you from square one, and assumed absolutely no understanding of computers. There was a friendly character that was arguably slightly patronizing because of the children’s book like approach. Users were taught simple things like how to double click, and clicking and dragging (things that a few users still have a hard time with).

This has now been trashed. Apple is still the most user-friendly out of all the operating systems, but I still believe that a much more advanced level of understanding is assumed. Time and time again I see people double clicking links on a webpage. I tell my sister all the time – “Just ONE click”. She continually says “Well, how do I remember which ones are which”.

In Apple’s OS9 I recall there was an option to have folders open with just one click. The so called “Spring-loaded folders” are now a distant memory – the latest version of OSX (Leopard) has more flashy features than you will see at the cinema.

But maybe that is not such a bad strategy. So long as operating the computer is entertaining, I don’t see this learning barrier as a problem. Here’s an analogy; you remember that video game that everyone used to play, the falling blocks game called Tetris? That puzzle was so entertaining that almost everybody could play it -eyesight permitting. Yes it was a ridiculously basic game, but computers don’t have to be anymore complicated than Tetris was. They just have to be as entertaining and as mesmerizing.

Zach Hope is the author of Speed-Up-Windows-XP.com, a site that can teach anybody speed up Windows to invigorate old computers. You can have dramatically more PC speed today from your slow computer