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GUIs Get a Makeover
jcatcw writes "From Xerox PARC to Apple to Microsoft, the GUI has been evolving over the years, and the increased complexity of current systems means it will continue to change. For example, Microsoft is switching from dropdown menus to contextual ribbons. Mobile computing creates new demands for efficient presentation while the desktop GUI doesn't scale to larger screens. Dual-mode user interfaces may show up first on PDA phones but then migrate to laptops and desktops. Which of today's innovations will become tomorrow's gaffs?"
i think they have been slowly DEvolving over the years, becoming more bloated and complex. They are starting to outreach the average joe.
We have had simple and effective GUI's in teh past, like Atari's GEM, and Apple's Newton. Simple and effecitve. but they were tossed aside for much larger and complex systems, requiring more hardware and brain power.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Gotta love an article on graphical user interfaces with no ... graphics ... of the user interface.
You'll take my File/Edit/View from my cold, dead hands.
So long as we're still using the mouse/keyboard as a primary interface for our computers, the current GUI model will likely stay pretty much the same for at least a good ten years or so. Once something better comes along, such as AI-assisted video/object recognition, it may open options similar to what was in Minority Report. Until then though, using a cursor for interaction will remain more effective than cursing at our machines directly.
8==8 Bones 8==8
I'd wager that, in the long term, GUIS might not increase productivity.. But an -intuitive- GUI for the end user sure as hell minimizes training for a lay user. Visual Icons representing actions are great reminders for those people, especially older ones, who can't remember three letter short-cut commands.
Bottom line: For an expert user, GUIs slow you down. Basic to Intermediate users, especially middle-aged non-techies, GUIs are a godsend, -- when done right --.
There's a lot of scientific user interface research that contradicts your sweeping claim that "There's been no evidence that they actually increase productivity ...".
A shell is itself quite a sophisticated user interface, and the commands and scripts you type into the shell are user interfaces, themselves. The TOPS-20 operating system provided completion and help built into the command line of all its utilities and applications. Tell me that's not a user interface. Unix has a much worse, non-standard way of providing parameters to programs and getting help about their parameters, and a lackluster hodge-podge of shells and scripting languages, which are some of the worst text based user interfaces in common use.
There are many things that guis make easier, like picking from a list of choices (menus, trees, scrolling lists, etc), drawing and painting (sure you could paint in a shell by typing in x,y coordinates, but that illustrates my point that there are many common tasks that a gui is better for than a command line).
I understand that you're probably just trying to play the Luddite, by rejecting all graphical user interfaces out of hand in favor of a text based shell, but shouldn't you reject all computers, cell phones and other electronic (and steam driven) devices, if you really want to be consistent? I mean, if you hate bad user interfaces, then you certainly shouldn't use the shell (or at least you should run it under Emacs so you have some reasonable input and output editing ability), because most shells have absolutely horrible user interfaces (i.e. arcane syntax). That's right, the syntax of a scripting (or programming) language IS a user interface. Unfortunately many language designers (i.e. PHP, Perl) have no concept of user interface design, and make many foolish usability mistakes that a competent graphical user interface designer should never make.
Have you ever try to explain csh history substitution syntax to your grandmother? Even if she knows how to send and reply to email with a graphical user interface, it'll probably take her a long time to learn how to use the shell.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
Well, they _work_, but I wouldn't say they work *well*. Some examples:
* OS X only has a single menu bar for all applications and all screens. So if your active application window isn't on the primary screen and you want to access the menu, you need to track all the way back to whichever screen is the primary to access it. Ditto for the Dock. Why can't there be a Menubar and Dock on each monitor ?
(Personally I've always found it rather ironic that MacOS was the early bringing of good multimonitor support, but its UI really doesn't handle them well).
* Windows has a similar problem with only one Taskbar and only one Start Menu. Why not a Taskbar for each monitor and/or, even better, the ability to pop the Start Menu up directly under the cursor ?
* Mouse tracking across multiple, big displays is slow or inaccurate unless you've got the twitch muscles of a fifteen year old first-person gamer. I want trackers on top of each screen that can monitor where I'm looking and move the mouse cursor to that spot.
* There's (typically) no "maximise across all screens" button.
So we should just take that extra screen and fill it up with pretty desklets? And this will make me a more productive person?
This seems to be the model most people think of when talking about multiple screens. For example, the typical multimonitor Mac user wants one screen for their Photoshop (or whatever) window and the other for all the palettes, toolbars and feedback windows is spawns.
> There's nothing you can't do in a shell that a gui provides extra ability for, when you've been well trained or decided to -learn- how to use a text mode interface well.
I've gone ahead and highlighted the critical flaw in your well-thought out argument.
People aren't well-trained in anything. The entire point of having a computer for most people is to make the computer SOLVE problems for them, not CAUSE problems that require training to fix. Most people don't want to take the nontrivial amount of time required to learn how to use a command prompt well, and it's for those people who GUIs are for.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
Voice recognition is a common thing I read here, but I whole-heartedly disagree. I already think office noise chatter is too high. I don't wnat to imagine when everyone is talking to their computer to tell it what to do.
What most replies here lack the understanding in is that an input method has its purposes and its uses. See the whole CLI vs. GUI argument here. Voice is just another input. It's great for GPS navigation or a mobile phone in your car, but for an office suite? Definitely not: ugh! How about in a library? How about at a LAN party? Anywhere where there are many people.
Voice recognition isn't the "killer app" of input devices. I think a combination of keyboard, mouse, stylus, joy stick, voice recognition, and touch screen would be a good start. Voice recognition for dictation, keyboard for editing, stylus for graphics drawing, mouse for web browsing (fine grain arbitrary clicking), touch screen for fast navigation of larger buttons (coarse grain arbitrary clicking), etc.
Why must we be confined to the keyboard and mouse?
:wq
Congrats on picking my pet effing hate, our university servers seem to have that DAMNED gnome filechooser as their only installed one, and as a result both eclipse and firefox use them for everything.
Here's a fun one, setting an external application as the default action for filetypes in eclipse, can't just type the command, can't use the $PATH var, have to browse around all the bin directories looking for the app you want with that horrible chooser.
grrr, the eclipse guys do a really good job, but when choosing a "run" application, there should ALWAYS be the option to just type the command if you intend for your product to be used on a *nix variant.
Depends on the type of "expert." What if I'm an expert drafter? Or an expert artist (visual or musical)? Or, hell, even an expert accountant?
The only experts who really benefit from CLIs are experts who deal primarily in text.
But the most important thing to me is this: It's very easy to run a CLI in a GUI; it's impossible to run a GUI in a CLI. Therefore, all computers should come with a nice GUI by default and users can easily run Terminal.app (or whatever) if they want a CLI.
Comment of the year
With GNU/Screen, you don't even need that!
The analogy is false, because its premise is false.
Rather, if Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit. I think that a function of evolution is that as traits emerge, a species starts to diversify, and the complexity of the system by which the trait is favored becomes more complex, until it flat out wins, then there is a return to simplicity.
It's sort of that way with scientific theory. Someone will have a quantam leap (no pun intended) forward in a model that describes the universe, and it's something really short and sweet, like E=mc^2. And then science says, "Oh, except when you're in a crowded elevator!" and, "Well, not really for very large values of 2!" and wonderful stuff like that, until someone realizes that, duh, the universe is really simple. And so on.
I want to also say that when I say the universe is really simple, I don't mean we can comprehend it. I just mean it's simple. If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must mod me +5 Insightful.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Worthless? Time is priceless. It's the only thing that, once you give it away, you can't get it back. Unlike money or love, time only ever flows in one direction.
Which of today's innovations will become tomorrow's gaffs?
My prediction is one mentioned in the blurb: the contextual ribbon. It sucked in XP and it looks like it will get worse in Vista. It's an interface designed around the assumption that users cannot learn. It's great for a newbie, but it blows chunks for intermediate and advanced users. It's a usability issue. When menus reorder items the user is unable to learn where they are. Half locations I click on in Windows menus are those stupid down arrows to see the REST of the freaking menu!
If you have too many menu items that you need to start hiding them, start rethinking if you need all those items. Think of <gasp> submenus. Think about other forms of command. Don't throw out the entire menu concept, because it ain't broke!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!