Jef Raskin Talks Skins

An incorrect assumption? by thesupraman · 2002-03-01 19:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

Jef Raskin is making one VERY big assumption.

He assumes that 'experts' can come up with one 'grand-unified-ui' which works the best for everyone, ignoring the fact that peoples minds interpret things in many different ways.

He should try working with mentally disabled children for a while, it is a BIG eye-opener as to how different people minds can be in their interpretation and reaction to a given stimulus, and is a little undersood area.

These 'UI' experts who apparently know us well enough to design the 'one true' interface are chasing an impossible dream, IMHO. You only need to look at how many people love/hate XPs default look, or apples aqua, for examples. I personally cannot develop efficiently without multiple desktops to support my many open windows, yet I know other excellent developers who will NOT run more than one app at a time and run it fullscreen.

This is the equivalent of trying to design the perfectly efficient kitchen, it will never happen.

I suspect a lot of the problem is that the 'common' desktop ui's out there don't really skin very well, the underlying system is too limited. X windows is the exception to this, as it only exists as seperable layers, allowing a much fnier control of it's functionality (via KDE and Gnome, for example)

The most consistent UI I've ever used was under OS/2, and IBM did a LOT of development on that, I wish windows would catch up, but it was far from perfect for me, and I bet the majority.

Customisation is required for ANYTHING we interact with in a major and complex way, computers are probably the biggest example of this yet, thankfully their customisability is growing.

Re:An incorrect assumption? by ccoakley · 2002-03-01 19:43 · Score: 5, Insightful

Customisation is required for ANYTHING we interact with in a major and complex way, computers are probably the biggest example of this yet, thankfully their customisability is growing.

I agree. Something to think about: A car is the most time critical interface that most people deal with. Take your eyes off the road for 8 seconds to change the radio station while a child crosses the street. And yet, most people manage NOT to kill someone with their car. These are the same people that bitch and moan about computers being hard to use. Anyway, everyone has a certain ammount of customization to their car. They use their favorite radio station. They adjust the seat. They roll down the windows. They adjust the mirrors. Should these things be standardized? Absolutely not. Sure, I found it a pain to have to adjust the seat after my girlfriend drove me home, but it was definitely better than her driving without reaching the pedals.

Computer interfaces are analogous; "I like it" IS a good reason to change your interface. Comfort with a tool improves productivity.

Besides, it would be difficult to have anyone find a comprehensive set of widgets without overwhelming even the best user. There is a big difference between multi-line and single line text boxes (press the enter key when there is a default button on the screen). Or tri-state vs. binary check boxes. Or the hundreds of ways a calendar could be used. If the functionality of something is different, should the look be different? What about the grids in Access vs. the grids in excel?

I agree that skins that move the window resizing controls around might have a learning curve for a guest at a machine. But is it bad? A slight loss of productivity for a guest for a comfort increase for the main user is probably worth the tradeoff. I know that I like changing my window background to 20% grey. It provides enough contrast without blasting my eyes with bright white light. Just because a text box functionally mimics paper and ink doesn't mean that it needs the same colors. And think about editors with syntax highlighting. I may browse code looking mostly at braces. I damn well want my braces to stand out. You might browse code by comments, whereas I find them distracting, so you choose a high contrast comment color and I choose a low contrast color. Because we are different, we have difficulties at each other's machines, but it's a lot better than each of us being less productive most of the time.

Of course, I may just be full of dung.

--
Network Security: It always comes down to a big guy with a gun.
Re:An incorrect assumption? by kfg · 2002-03-01 20:36 · Score: 4, Interesting

Not only is there not one grand perfect interface for the desktop but different apps will need vastly different interfaces.

Going along with the car analogy there is a great difference in the interfaces of a car and a backhoe, and yet they are both more similar than they are to a 747.

The needs, thought and work patterns of a graphic artist are different than those of novelist, whose needs are a bit different than a short essay writer.

The one grand UI is a chimera, and I hope it stays that way.

KFG
Re:An incorrect assumption? by Stary · 2002-03-01 22:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

The car analogy is a poor one.
For an entirely different reason, I find the car analogy great. The article keeps going on and on about how horrible it is to switch environments when there are different skins. Then just look at how different cars are.
Yes the steering wheel is still there, and so on, but the "skin" on the dashboard is different and the buttons are often placed in different places. Some cars have digital speedometers, some have analogue ones. Ignition is in different places, geer shifts have different configurations.
All of these take some getting used to when getting into a new car, but it's part of the "charm". It's also one of the big factors when someone is buying a new car. Different people are comfortable with different things.
Of course, maybe it's more efficient to standardize everything: Let every computer, car, coffee machine, whatever else have the same "skin". And forbid background pictures for computers (and btw, show me one bozo who deliberately uses a picture of 10 overlapping windows as a background...) I would be bored outta my head.
Maybe we should just geneticly engineer everyone into one "male" or "female" character. That would be more efficient since noone would have a problem finding a partner when half of the population would be a "perfect partner", and noone has to be jealous of anyone whatsoever. The world would suck though. One people, one skin (ring any bells?)
Simply said: This interview rings the warning bells of what I value the most with free software: freedom of choice.

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Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
Re:An incorrect assumption? by j7953 · 2002-03-02 00:38 · Score: 3, Interesting

Sure, I found it a pain to have to adjust the seat after my girlfriend drove me home, but it was definitely better than her driving without reaching the pedals.

Yes. But there is a big difference: Your girlfriend did not move the position of any of the controls (i.e. she didn't exchange the pedals or something). She just made the car fit her in a physical way. Also note that in a car, it's quite easy to adjust things, while on computers you often have to dig deeply into obscure menu structures. Raskin's "red on red" is a good example of what's wrong with the kind of UI customization that is offered by current systems.

I know that I like changing my window background to 20% grey. It provides enough contrast without blasting my eyes with bright white light.

I used to think that too. Try a better monitor, and do not set it to maximum contrast. (I'm serious about this. Black on white is much more readable.)

You might browse code by comments, whereas I find them distracting, so you choose a high contrast comment color and I choose a low contrast color.

This is a good example, but this doesn't mean customization as offered by current systems is done well. I would (like, probably, you) not want to read code on someone's computer if he's set up high contrast comments, slightly lower contrast code. Still, that person shouldn't be forced to read code the way I like it. But that's not the problem -- the problem is that you can't change the setting with a simple mouse click, like you can arrange the seat in your car with something as simple as pulling a lever and then simply moving the seat to where you'd like it to be.

But I think there is also a lot of truth in what Raskin says. Most of the skinning and customization options available on current system just increase the coolness factor, not the usability. You can't tell me that a semi-transparent menu is more usable than a non-transparent one. Regarding your example of source code, you cannot customize the way code looks when reading a book. Still, you probably do read example code in books, don't you? And you probably don't have too much difficulty doing so.

But while "no customization" does solve the problem of "bad customization", this doesn't automatically mean that "good customization" is impossible and shouldn't be available in a good GUI.

I've read Raskin's book, and this interview is really way below the quality of the book. Raskin ought to apply the scientific methods he talks about to the reasoning in his interviews, just like he applied them to the reasoning in his book.

--
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
Re:An incorrect assumption? by kisrael · 2002-03-02 01:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

Yeah, and it seems that often UI "science" is misguided. Only rarely do they say "well, this whole system works better than this whole system according to our double blind study". Instead they come up with gems like "people are .2 seconds faster at scrolling to a given word with this kind of scrollbar than with that kind", making the assumption that that finding would scale when part of a complex system, or that other factors aren't more important to having a happy, ultimately more productive user.

I don't particularly like skins per se, as they seem to be mere eye-candy and I kind of like the Win95's level of functional utility. But whenever I start with a virgin Windows machine with a newer OS, I have to do a bunch of fiddling, remove the fade in and/or smooth opening windows, change the explorer defaults to list rather than big honking icons, etc. Does that count?

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SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Re:An incorrect assumption? by HamNRye · 2002-03-02 08:47 · Score: 5, Interesting

The car analogy actualy presents us with an answer.

Power seats that remember driver position. These come in some of the higher end cars now.

Why not do this for preferences?? It is rather trivial to do with the MAC. I would like to speak of it in other terms....

Using a keychain microdrive (USB?) with about 16-32 MB of storage, you could not only provide a secure login method, but also store preference data. Any application that was "(Insert Marketing Term) aware" would store it's preferences in a registry type repository, and would be synched with the microdrive.

Moving to a new computer would be a matter of plugging in your "key", which would read your user data, log you in and apply your preferences to the "registry". A 32MB Mircodrive should have no trouble storing your Photoshop Prefs, Background images, Winamp skins, etc... Power users will want larger Microdrives.

As time evolves, The Gimp will learn to read Photoshop Prefs, etc..., But at the very least, like applications will work in like ways on different machines.

Even in standardized interfaces, there will still be "preference related items" like bookmarks, recently used files, etc. I personally would just like to have my bookmarks and preferences stored and merged between home and work. Standardized interfaces are difficult to achieve even in the corporate environment where a given OS may only have 10-20 different uses.

Raskin is full of empty criticism. For all of his chirping, he has not created this perfect interface. Perhaps it's too hard for him to get in the industry?? He has no buisness commenting on Eazel when he has nothing better to show.

Finally, he made a crack about the default "Aqua" colored background, whether the Redmond or Cupertino version is unclear. If he is talkling about that horrible off-blue that was the default for Win95, that was chosen for another reason.

Blue waves travel slower, and hence a monitor displying a blue field will have less noticable scan lines from refresh than a red field would.

Complex problems require overlooking simple solutions.
~Steve Jobs

Jason

UI expert is missing something (as usual) by Anonymous Coward · 2002-03-01 19:28 · Score: 4, Interesting

Problem statement: If everyone uses a different skin, then you're lost if you use someone else's computer.

Obvious solution: Select your favorite skin on the other computer, do your work, restore to the original skin before you leave. This could be as quick as typing a number in a box "My favorite skin is #372 optionflags 17".

What the article says: Obvious solution not mentioned. It is assumed that you HAVE to deal with someone else's skin choice. Your subconscious chokes. Bad bad bad. UI expert conclusion: no more skins.

*sheesh*

Re:UI expert is missing something (as usual) by Stary · 2002-03-01 22:16 · Score: 3

I wish I had mod points. Thank you. Now here's my favourite quote from the article:
Jef: To customize is to introduce change. You lose some consistency with any interface change. But there's a more important point to be made. Preferences eat up resources. They make the software larger. They waste the time of the user in changing them. Of course, there are no really well-designed interfaces out there good enough to prove the point that you don't need preferences. Any programmers who want to help build one with me, drop me an e-mail.
Yes, well, DOS was very consistent, and it hardly ate any resources at all (by todays standard). Let's all switch to DOS. In fact, all this article is talking about is to limit the choices for the user. The second funny thing is that "any programmers" can help build the perfect interface... and of course he's the only one to know how. Looks more like a religious sect to me: Oh but there isn't any way of prooving it! You just have to beleive ME!

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Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest

Jef Raskin: the Interface Nazi? by steveha · 2002-03-01 19:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

"No customizations for you!"

In this interview, Jef Raskin comes off as rather arrogant. He seems absolutely convinced that there is an objective, scientific, Best Way for everything about interfaces.

I'm not convinced. One person might actually work better with white text on a deep blue background, or whatever. I can think of other examples.

With Mr. Raskin it is all-or-nothing: if you work for him, you don't get to customize anything, unless you convince him that you really have a better idea (in which case he switches too, and everyone else who works for him has to switch too.

His supporting arguments didn't impress me much either. A "Preferences" dialog makes an app consume more resources? Not enough to matter, I'd say. That's like saying that putting foam cushions on a car seat makes the car heavier.

The absolute gem of a quote, though, was this one:

Of course, there are no really well-designed interfaces out there good enough to prove the point that you don't need preferences. Any programmers who want to help build one with me, drop me an e-mail.

Maybe he can actually create an interface so amazing, so perfect, so right that no one would ever be able to improve upon it. I won't hold my breath, though.

steveha

--
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely

Re:Jef Raskin: the Interface Nazi? by slashfucker · 2002-03-01 20:09 · Score: 4, Interesting

A lot of people say that Jobs "stole" the Macintosh from Raskin.
They say that Jobs, disappointed with the progress on his pet Lisa project, commandeered the Macintosh team and "rode" it to victory. I've read the good, bad, and ugly biographies of Steve Jobs, and it seems to me that Raskin had a few good ideas in his "Macintosh Bible" that would have been pulled down by all his bad ideas if Jobs hadn't gotten involved and imposed his own brand of anal-retentive design fascism.
IIRC, Raskin wanted a pitiful 256x256 resolution, Jobs insisted on higher (512x384), which was one of the features which made the Mac Classic unique. He wanted white on black, Jobs wanted the paper look (black on white). Again, part of the original Mac's charm.
It seems like they both started out somewhat geeky, anal-retentive, and anti-social; however, Jobs has mellowed somewhat since he got booted from Apple for being so mercuric. Raskin still seems to be growing up.

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Gee, looks like somebody doesn't want

Re:Efficiency, Boredom, and Schemas by wadetemp · 2002-03-01 20:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

For me, I would prefer to stretch my "subconscious" processing of alternative, skinned UIs so that I can respond to a greater number of computing/information presentation. I may not be able to autonomically process a given interface as quickly as somebody who is familiar with the standardized UI, but I will be able to adapt to other UIs.

I would say that's a resonable opinion for someone who wants to get a diverse computer use experience, but then again most computer users (of which slashdoters are a small small minority) just want to get in, get things done, and get out.

Have you ever used the trial version of WinZip? The trial dialog that pops up before you can use the product swaps the OK and Cancel buttons intentionally every time it starts up. Even if you use WinZip 10 times a day every day your concious mind comes into play every time you use this application. What's the task at hand? Accepting a dialog. Why should you have to think about this?

The same mental lag happens for novice users working between UIs (or skins)... bringing the concious mind into the picture is not helpful to people who need/want thier entire concious mind available for the task at hand, not accepting a dialog. :)

Hmm... by Waffle+Iron · 2002-03-01 20:01 · Score: 5, Funny

In our group's machines, I strongly encourage everybody to leave all the settings at the default, or if somebody makes a strong case (strong does not mean "I like it") for a particular change, we all make it. That way we can move from machine to machine without going berserk or even feeling a little ill at ease.

In our group, I strongly encourage everyone to keep their fscking mitts off of my machine. That way nobody gets hurt.

Question for Jef by IvyMike · 2002-03-01 20:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

Hey, Jef: I use Solaris (and even SunOS 4(!) for some of the legacy systems) at work. I also use Windows NT at work. I have Windows 98 at home for games. I have a Linux box at home for networking. I have an iBook on which I run MacOSX and Yellow Dog Linux.

So, Mr Jef "Allowing users to customize their desktops creates a hodgepodge of interfaces" Raskin, I have a question: Have you considered that my life is already a hodgepodge of crazy and different intefaces, and that skins and themes actually let me make it MORE regular?

(Yeah, I know he's not really reading this. But I needed to vent somehow. If Sun, Apple, MS, and Red Hat will suddenly all agree on a common UI, I'll drop my need for customization.)

seems rather arrogant by maxpublic · 2002-03-01 20:07 · Score: 4, Interesting

The man seems rather arrogant to me, insisting that customization will reduce productivity and therefore is a Bad Thing(TM). With this kind of logic we should insist on only right-hand mouse settings since 90% of the people who use the computer are right-handed and would be less productive if they had to change the settings when they sat down at some left-handers computer.

Fact is, people generally customize their computers to make things easier on themselves, and to make the machines more pleasant to work with. Nothing wrong with that. Most machines are used by a single person anyway, and if that person moves on then the next will customize it according to his or her preferences. I can't see how the Ultimate UI will radically improve performance; this 'Ultimate UI' would probably just end up annoying a whole lot of folks who don't like what the 'specialists' think is the key to greater productivity.

Now, if the man was serious about improving productivity in the work place he'd abandon this topic altogether and lobby to ban web browsers from company computers. I'd bet my last dollar that web browsers are the source of more wasted time at work than all UI 'issues' put together.

Max

--
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?

Re:seems rather arrogant by JPriest · 2002-03-01 20:17 · Score: 3, Insightful

"I'd bet my last dollar that web browsers are the source of more wasted time at work than all UI 'issues' put together." I think most pople that frequent /. have easy jobs.

--
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.

Re:I was quite impressed... by TotallyUseless · 2002-03-01 20:08 · Score: 3, Interesting

Steve jobs did NOT invent the macintosh. he was the team leader after a while, and made it into his baby, but it was not his idea, or creation. in fact, jeff raskin deserves more credit for the wizardry of the mac ui than just about anyone else. i may not agree with everything he said about apple and/or jobs, but strictly from his experience, he has a right to voice his opinion, and the smart people will at least take what he says into consideration even if they dont directly follow the 'law of raskin'

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Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!

Re:In the beginning there was the command line! by TotallyUseless · 2002-03-01 20:18 · Score: 3, Insightful

whether or not the cli is more productive depends wholly on your task.

is using cli the most efficient way to do traceroutes, grep searches, and other similar things? yes.

is cli the best way to browse the web? depends. lynx is good for news sites, not so good for porn!

is cli the best way to edit graphics? ummm.. let me know when the cli version of photoshop comes out and ill let you know.

my point is yes, years ago, the cli was the most productive interface for computers, but that is only because there was nothing worth doing at the time that couldnt be handled with a cli. at this point computers have so many uses that it is mainly a matter of the right tool for the right job.

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Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!

Arrogance by Ender_the_Xenocide · 2002-03-01 20:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

OSO: The benefits of a consistent interface are only fully realized when the interface is well designed to start with. What would you say to those individuals who have a bad default desktop? Is it more ideal for them to skin their OS, or are they better off moving to another platform that has a well-designed default interface?
Jef: I remember one client of mine who boasted about his customizable desktop and how he never had to reboot his software. I set the system font to red and the background to red. You couldn't see a thing. He spent a few minutes trying to find and open the now-invisible menus that would let him change one of the colors.
He had to reboot. His system was good in that it automatically saved the user preferences, so it came up red on red. He had not only to reboot, but to reload the software, losing all his demo data.

So, because you were an asshole, his design was bad? I don't get it.

I really don't understand the point that Raskin's trying to make here. That a UI shouldn't even allow changing colours? That seems pretty draconian. That people might change your settings behind your back, so there shouldn't be any settings? That seems pretty incoherant. That a system shouldn't automatically save settings without some way to undo the change easily? Good advice, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the question that was asked.

What is the point of this anecdote, and why is it here?

Re:Arrogance by GauteL · 2002-03-01 23:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

Actually. The point is that the system should understand that red fonts on red background is a crash, and not do that.

Customize all you like, but the interface should be smart enough to recognize that certain cases is a "no no".

How Orwellian... by badasscat · 2002-03-01 20:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

The entire concept of "consistency" in interface design is misguided from the start. The issue of "practicality" is an important one but it's certainly no less important than the issue of human individuality. If everything in life were designed for practicality above all else, and if everybody were forced into using all the same products for the sake of consistency, I'm not sure I'd really want to go on living. The issue of interface consistency is no different than the issue of whether or not we should all be forced to drive Nissan Sentras and paint our bedroom walls off-white. Please, somebody kill me if that happens.

This whole argument also completely ignores the fact that the user interface is increasingly moving off the desktop and onto the net - advanced Flash web sites and even html sites can have their own user interfaces that have nothing to do with the OS or programs you're running and that have their own learning curve to deal with. In fact, for my job, I'd say I deal more with web-based interfaces than I do with my OS interface. Is this guy really going to argue that every single web site, no matter what the content, should have the exact same interface for consistency's sake?

I couldn't really care less if somebody has to spend 10 minutes acclimating themselves to my own preferences on my own computer, and I accept that I will probably have to do the same if I use someone else's (how often *do* people use each other's computers, anyway?). I don't personally see what the big freakin' deal is, especially if skinning allows me and everybody else around me to feel just a little bit more expressive, creative, and downright human in what's increasingly becoming a sanitized and overly regulated world - especially at the office. If I want to put a friggin' Final Fantasy X wallpaper on my office computer, it isn't up to this guy to tell me a plain white background would somehow make me more "productive".

Re:I was quite impressed... by TotallyUseless · 2002-03-01 20:39 · Score: 5, Interesting

well, yes. i respect mr raskin a lot too, and owe a lot of my happy computing experiences to him. that's why this article is troubling me. i pretty much disagree with most of what he said as well... I think skinning is a good thing, as long as it is based off a workable standard. take for instance kaleidoscope for os9. You could completely changed the way your windows looked, and the colors of everything you wanted, but it still stuck to the functional standards. menus and buttons were all in the same place, although they might look funky. and the best part of kaleidoscope skins is the fact that they are system wide, and work on any properly programmed app. This is an example of a skinning application that did it right.

raskin's attitude in this article does worry me tho. he is a very smart man, but i dont like the 'my way or the highway' attitude he is taking. i think freedom to customize can greatly enhance the computing experience when it is based off of what he would call a functional 'scientific' gui model. I have been reading stuff raskin said for many years about GUIs, and i have agreed with him for the most part. but i can only listen for so long before i have to say 'Put up or shut up.' Mr Raskin, please show us this gui you have in mind for all of us. Please stop talking about it endlessly and just do it. You can rag on Steve Jobs all you want... but to quote Steve, 'Real artists ship.'

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Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!

Amazing over-focus by Angst+Badger · 2002-03-01 21:00 · Score: 3, Insightful

User interface design is important. But when Raskin says you ought to design the interface first and then design an OS to support it, it's terribly clear that he has been looking at one problem for so long that he sees everything in terms of it.

If I said we ought to design a really, really good steering wheel, and then design a car to support it, everyone (except perhaps Mr. Raskin) would say I was a fscking moron. And they'd be right.

It's not a failure of the OS engineer if the UI sucks, it's a failure of the UI designer. Computers and operating systems are built to provide raw power for people to do things, and the job of the UI designer is to present that power to the user in a way he or she can understand and apply it. It obviously isn't easy, but to hear Mr. Raskin tell it, if he gave you a Lamborghini with a square steering wheel, it's the fault of the guys who designed the engine.

Pure hooey. I'll start taking these UI creampuffs seriously when one of them finds an intuitive and simple way to provide me with a GUI with even one feature as elegant and powerful as the CLI pipe and redirect symbols. Until then, they're just arrogant toy designers.

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Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.

Rhetoric, not logic by HalfFlat · 2002-03-01 21:36 · Score: 3, Insightful

What an unfortunate opinion piece. For someone extolling the virtues of a scientific approach to HCI, it's almost criminal to simultaneously engage in fatuous argument. It colours the topic by association. Why is it bad argument?

Firstly, there is the fallacy that there are only two options. The opposite of 'no configurability' is not 'everything is seperately configurable'. There is a middle ground that is being excluded by omission. This middle ground contains the most sensible option: one could apply one configurable interface across all applications that would thereby provide a consistent interface to the user in question. So excluding it is disingenuous.
Secondly, there is the infamous strawman argument. Configurability taken to extremes allows poor interfaces to be configured. Configuring someone's machine to show text as red on red doesn't demonstrate that the concept of configurability is bad - it just demonstrates that one can make bad choices. Or in this case, that Jef Raskin can be a bastard to one of his clients.

The other flaws in the argument fall into one of these two categories. For example, that there is only a choice between (1) a single customisable interface across a platform, and (2) other users of a machine being stuck with an unfamiliar interface. As other commenters have noted, this is silly. The clear sensible option is per-user preferances, and ideally ones that migrate with the user.

Lastly he argues that adding interface customizability enlarges applications. This is certainly true. He naturally fails to mention that this is a trade-off against the possibility that the user of an application may be able to work more efficiently as a result, if they make the interface more suited to themselves.

As with all these sorts of things, it's tedious and sometimes difficult to sort out the fallacious arguments from the valid, spot the omitted facts, and distinguish between truth and spin. There are some valid points buried in that rubbish, but the Jef and the interviewer do their readers no favours by using such points as support for an argument that is deceptive and unreasonable.

How about some intellectual honesty? Or is that just too much to ask?

User Interface Consistency by guttentag · 2002-03-01 22:16 · Score: 5, Funny

Isn't it interesting that Jef preaches against the evils of inconsistency, yet he spells his first name in a manner that is inconsistent with the common spelling?

Jakob Nielsen would say the spelling hurts the usability of Jef's name because it goes against our conditioning. Everywhere he goes, he must bear the burden of correcting people who misspell his name.

I'd say Jef is either quite angry with his parents' creative streak or there's something inconsistent about his behavior.

I think he's stuck in 1984 by tkrotchko · 2002-03-02 09:15 · Score: 3, Interesting

When the Mac came out in 1984-ish, a big part of the computer industry (including the press) talked about ideal user interfaces. That was the whole point of the GUI pioneered by PARC.

A lot of the interfaces done up until that time were unique; 1-2-3 had a unique interface, Wordperfect had a unique interface.

What apple did that was revolutionary wasn't the GUI, it was they defined an environment for all programs to use which enforced a common user interface. The net result was groudbreaking because a lot of the basics were the same in each application. Remember, WYSIWYG was the hot buzz word (words?) back then, so the entire frame of reference was different.

So, the evolution so far was:
No interface -> Application Specific Interface -> Common User Interface

What's wrong with this picture? Well back in the day when the CUI was the hot ticket, the idea of desktop "metaphors" was in vogue. The trash can was there because you understood that deleting a document was like throwing away a piece of paper on your desk. So in fact, the interface of the Mac was supposed to be a metaphor for a user's desktop (in fact, its still called a desktop).

But a desktop isn't a good metaphor for recording music, or taking pictures, or doing an unlimited number of tasks.

Why shouldn't the garden hose have the same interface as the typewriter? Because each interface exploits the unique features and attributes of that type of device.

So in 2001, computers are several orders of magnitude more powerful than 1984 and we really have the ability to create much closer metaphors.

In fact, you could say this argues against a common user interface. It says the interface should be the best to do the job at that time.

I fall somewhere in the middle. There is clearly a value of having the idea of a desktop metaphor. There is value in having experience framework for doing computer related tasks. But ideally there is a balance between consistency and the best interface for the task at hand.

So I find Jef's interview interesting, but I think he's still stuck in a 1988 period of UI design. No offense to him, he's a smart guy and I don't discount what he says, but based on the comment's he's made, I think the computer world has passed him by.

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You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you

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