Baby Duck Syndrome
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles. (September 2008) |
 |
This article may not meet the general notability guideline. Please help to establish notability by adding reliable, secondary sources about the topic. If notability cannot be established, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. (December 2009) |
Baby Duck Syndrome denotes the tendency for computer users to "imprint" on the first system they learn, then judge other systems by their similarity to that first system. The result is that "users generally prefer systems similar to those they learned on and dislike unfamiliar systems."[1] The term may have been inspired by popular understanding of the work, experiences, and observations of Konrad Lorenz.
[edit] Keyboards
A common example of Baby Duck Syndrome is users who prefer the keyboard layout of the first computer they used, leading manufacturers to produce keyboards with discontinued layouts.[2]
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ "Baby duck syndrome: Imprinting on your first system makes change a very hard thing", Peter Seebach, developerWorks, 2 March 2005
- ^ Happy Hacking Keyboard product description (no longer manufactured)
