But here was an excellent example of good intentions on the part of the programmers conflicting with the limited needs of the users. My friend's e-mail program (Outlook Express in this case) allowed a great deal of personal preference in the layout of the program. It did this in order to allow users to streamline the program to their needs and preferences. The programmers, experienced mouse clickers by definition, assumed that their potential users would want to be able to streamline the program to make it best fit their needs. But, as I've discovered time and again, most users don't need, nor want, customization. On the contrary, it threatens them. They prefer a program that performs exactly the same way each time they encounter it (and best of all, that it looks the same at home as it did where they learned to use it in the first place). Too many options threatens their sense of familiarity and even security with the computer.