Tactile the Future of GUI?

aaronvegh writes "Slashdot readers have been griping a lot lately about the lack of an alternative to the desktop GUI. In his latest Alertbox column, Jakob Nielson (love him or hate him) is proposing that tactile, phsyical interfaces will be the next evolution in how we interact with machines. An interesting read, and a relief from the tired "the desktop GUI is dead, and we'll replace it with....uh....""

Comments

As always, the porn industry is there first...

[Marx_Mrvelous]

Does it even need to be said?

Jesus CHRIST

[yatest5]

I won't take any advice on GUI design from a website that looks like THAT!

Re:Jesus CHRIST

[ceejayoz]

GUIs don't have to be flashy - they have to be functional. Whilst his site isn't particularly cool/pretty/fun/flashy looking, it works just fine.

Does seem to be the general trend, though... there was a /. article a little while back about how GUIs have stagnated... but the article was like dark green background with light green text. Ick.

What is broken with the Desktop idea?

[nrjyzerbuny]

I see nothing in this article that shows what exactly a physical paradigm would do better than a desktop one. Truthfully, I don't think desktop when I'm on a box, it's just hierarchically organized folders. Which makes alot of sense to me.

Re:What is broken with the Desktop idea?

[elphkotm]

Users want strucgture: Once presented with a general layout, "My Documents," "My Media," etc... users will start to create subfolders and organize things. The folder concept is very simple and very concrete to users, you just have to show them how to use it, and they're off and running.

The only thing that seems to get crowded for non-"IT Professionals" that I know is the Desktop, which is a horrible place to be able to put files, in my opinion. The desktop should be relegated to program/page links, and the special document/media folders.

What..

[iONiUM]

that tactile, phsyical interfaces will be the next evolution in how we interact with machines.

what, like the abacus? :-)

Smell

[sporty]

Last thing we will need though, is smell feedback. Lord knows what my trash bin smells like with the junk thats in there. And worse yet, my porn folder. Ewr....

Bad taste

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want UI advice from a guy who keeps using bold on almost every sentence.

Not what you think...

[CrazyDwarf]

From reading the article, it appears they're more interested in tactile interfaces for non-PC devices. I really don't think this will affect the gui any time soon, too many people need to be able to see what they're doing.

Minority report

[GothChip]

I would love a GUI similar to the one used in Minority Report.

An alternative would be a simple OS interface similar which uses radial menus like those in Never Winter Nights.

Link to examples...

[Tall Rob Mc]

I found a link in the article to be almost as interesting as the article itself. This is a link to Saul Greenberg's site at the University of Calgary where he has a collection of user interfaces, most of which have been designed by his students and include video examples. Here It Is

iFeel mouse

[IvyMike]

I've been using my Logitech iFeel mouse, which has tactile feedback, for over a year now. I like it a lot; it's reassuring that widgets in windows are "bumpy". I guess it's like moving to a real keyboard after having used a membrane keyboard. It even works in some games, most notably Black & White which actually had missions that would only appear with a force-feedback mouse.

But unfortunately, iFeel mice have been available for a long time now, but it doesn't seem like they're catching on. People don't seem to want to spend even the extra $20 or so for the feature.

Why is GUI considered the future?

[gosand]

I have posted similar comments in various forums recently, probably because the topic of the "next-gen GUI" keeps coming up.

I think there are some important things to point out here. Microsoft may make things easier to use, but harder to understand. With all of the hand holding, wizards, and simply doing things for you, the end user is becoming less and less knowledgable about computers. They are becoming more and more educated about "The Microsoft Way".

Some say that Linux gui developers have yet to crack the gui solution. I say that Windows has failed to crack the Command Line Interface (CLI). Why is a graphical interface always seen as the evolutionary step? Hasn't the gui gone about as far as it can go? I think with our current technology, it has. Linux has a GUI and a CLI, both are powerful. Windows has a GUI and a hobbled CLI.

People talk about the next generation GUI. No. Talk about the next generation interface. See, the GUI was made simple because the people using computers were new to them. Do you think that will always be the case? Can you picture living without automobiles? How about telephones? Electricity? It can be done, but we are of the generation(s) that take these thing for granted because they have always been a part of our lives. The people who had to transition from not having these things to using them on a daily basis were uncomfortable with them. This is happening with computers. When I grew up, there were no computers. I transitioned OK, I went into the field. My siblings did not. Kids today are growing up with them, so computers are not foreign objects. They won't need the hand-holding OS, they aren't afraid of the machines. (Show them a record, or an 8-track tape if you want to see fear and confusion) :-)

People always talk about making the interface simpler. I think that the interface will not become simpler, it will become a little more complex, simply becase it won't need to be simple anymore. This is just my theory, and I hope I live to see it become reality.

I also understand the need to look for the "next great thing", but I don't think we have properly used the interfaces we currently have (GUI with CLI). Although the interface in Minority Report was pretty cool, throw a CLI on there and use the gloves with a virtual keyboard, and you are in business.

Re:Why is GUI considered the future?

[gosand]

Command lines are all well and good, and are very useful in a lot of situations, but are ultimately too much of an abstraction for a general user to work with - you're forced to learn, in essence, a new language to "talk" to the machine. Why should the average person need to do this? I would think the goal of good interface design is to lessen the challenge of using the machine for it's purpose - as a tool to retireve information.

This is EXACTLY my point. Right now, this is true for new users. In the next generation or two, there won't be NEW users. Everyone will be a user. It won't need to be made ONLY simple. Right now, with Linux, you have a choice between GUI and CLI. IMO, the interface needs to be a meld between the two. The GUI and CLI are both Interfaces to the OS. They each have their limitations, but the complement each other well. By saying the "future" is a GUI limits you. Maybe not on slashdot, but most other places computer users believe the Interface to be the OS.

Re:Why is GUI considered the future?

[gosand]

Look, the GUI is going to get simpler and simpler (and hold more and more hands). Anything else would be an atrocity. As tools improve they get simpler to use.

I agree with what you say, but computers are different than most tools. They are multi-purpose. The basics of a car are the same - they get you from place to place. Computers are getting more complex, in that they can do so many different things. The interface cannot get simpler, unless the function gets simpler.

Otherwise development would be going backwards. You weren't intentionally trolling, but man you're out of touch with the average computer-using Joe.

That was my point about electricity, etc that I think you missed. Once the technology, or thing, becomes so ingrained in society, a product loses it's novelty. People were initially afraid/excited about telephones, electricity, cars, refrigeration, etc. Once it evolved to where it was a standard, normal thing, the magic was gone and people could start using it. Electricity was used originally for light, but now we rely on it for many many things. Computers will be the same. But again, they are more complex, they aren't simple, single-purpose things. Therefore, I think their interfaces will need to be made more complex in order to tap the power out of them. The average Joe computer user won't be the same type of person anymore. In order to tap into the potential power of computers, you either have to simplify their function (then you can simplify the interface) or make the interface more complex but powerful. What may seem complex to us today will be standard for users in 25 years. (again, only if the computer is kept as a multi-function thing)

The Desktop GUI is dead

[Artana Niveus Corvum]

and we'll replace it with.....bash! bwahahahaha

Not Enough Bandwidth

[Frobnicator]

Tactile cannot replace visual. It can augment it, sure, but not replace. Here's why:

Your eyes have millions of receptors. When you see something like a screen, most of them are actively processing the screen. That is HUGE bandwidth. You are used to using it because your brain is processing vision constantly, so is very accurate.

A tactile interface would rely on a few hundred receptors on a handful of fingers. (pun intended) Unless you read braile, your fingers aren't that sensitive. Your fingers aren't used to being used as a primary interface, and is therefore not that accurate.

Aural (sound) interfaces are much better because they have a significant bandwidth (not as high as vision, but better than touch) and we are used to using them. That's part of why the two most-required output interfaces are a monitor and speakers.

Input interfaces are the same. The best way we have for output is our tongue (seriously), second is our hands. So our two preferred input interfaces should logially be voice and hand. We are used to typing, and always dream of the ultimate speech-control interface. Or you could go to a tongue interface, but I wouldn't want my co-developers to share it.

So as far as User Interfaces go, I think we should strive for better GUIs that can be augmented with sound and tactile feedback.

Just some thoughts.

The argument hobbles both

[Planesdragon]

The difference between a CLI and a GUI are, really, baggage from a prior generation of systems that should be discarded.

A future interface will be graphical because that allows for more immediate and intuitive use of information. I can know, at a fraction of a glance, that I have Groupwise, Mozilla, and Winamp loaded as "user applications," as well as a working iFolder, netshield, & a couple of other background apps.

The biggest improvement for this will be keyboard integration. I want to push a button (windows key or equivalent) and have a "command area" pop up, which is designed to work with the GUI.

Take the Windows setup and add anything & everything that the Linux CLIs have that it doesn't. Then rework the entire thing from the ground up, remembering that the CLI will work *always* with the GUI, and a user should be able to do everything with the CLI.

A generation after this, and we can replace the command area with voice recognition. The voice subsystem will just feed commands into where the CLI goes, and it'll work exactly as we imagined it would as kids.

Mouse: an often overlooked issue

[the bluebrain]

concerning mice: using a mouse is terribly inefficient. The only thing it has going for it is that it is universal. I can use it to point (badly), draw (badly), write (very badly) - just about anything in 2-D.

However, when I watch myself aim for instance for that 5mm x 20mm area in most apps that says "File", I realise that fast as it is, it actually represents an effort - it requires appreciable hand-eye coordination. This is not really a problem (at least not for me), but it is an unnecessary annoyance - it should be effortless. It's also the reason I learn about 20+ keyboard shortcuts as soon as possible for every app I know I'm going to be using 2+ times a week. I always Alt-Tab through my apps on Windows, and if I want to see the running apps, I unhide the autohidden startbar with the Windows key, rather than the mouse.
My favourite apps are the ones where I don't have the touch the mouse at all. Although there are some exceptions: mouse gestures in Opera are great, mainly because they require hardly any hand-eye coordination - the pointer just has to be somewhere in the window I want to do something with. Same with wheeled mice - successful, because it requires far less effort putting the pointer somewhere in a windows and "wheeling" up/down, rather than aiming for the proper section of a 5 mm scrollbar.

Having said all that - this is just one element of modern GUIs, notably interesting because it's both so successful and so bad.

Breaking Fitts' Law--M$ made the mouse slow

[Ilan Volow]

The reason why the mouse requires so much effort on Windows is that Microsoft (and by extension, most windows programmers) make UI's that take a lot of power away from the mouse.

The example most relevant to your post is the pull-down "File" menu. When they copied apple (or tried to), microsoft changed the location of the pull-down menu bar from the top of the screen (like on a mac) to the window of each respective application. With Apple's way, you can't possibly vertically overshoot the menu bar; with Microsoft's way, not only is it possible to overshoot the menubar horizontally, but you have to watch out for overshooting the menubar vertically as well. Putting it simply, a menu at the top of a screen has faster mouse access times than a menu on a window. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but it is a result of something called Fitts' Law, which states that the time to access a target is a function of the target's distance and it's size. For more information on Fitts' Law, check out this article on usability guru Bruce Tognizzini's website.

Re:OT - Dvorak is not superior

[Junta]

I say don't knock it until you have tried it and become somewhat accustomed to it. While I admit there is insufficient benefit to start retraining everyone, it is more comfortable for me to type in dvorak. I'm also a bit faster, but the key for me is the comfort. The less I have to move my fingers, the happier I am.