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?

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.

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....

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.

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.

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.