Slashdot Mirror
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?"
You only need them to open mutiple xterm/CMD windows, so who cares?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
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 ----
I've been developing touch screen talking pie menus on handheld devices, like the Pocket PC. Pie menus work very well with touch screens, but of course the way they track and display and give feedback has to be adapted to the quirks of small touch screens. Talking pie menus give you audio feedback with a speech synthesizer, so they don't require a lot of visual attention and hand-eye coordination.
Talking pie menus make it possible to use an application without looking at the screen! That's important for mobile applications like GPS navigation systems, which people use while driving (despite all the warnings again it).
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
...well, at least for websites: Spreading the fricken article over several pages, e.g., this article...
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
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
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 use photoshop.
This seems incredibly divorced from reality. Lots of people use multiple screens, and extending the same desktop across those screens works really well to manage the available space. The answer from Microsoft Research -- waste all that space by monitoring more information. So we should just take that extra screen and fill it up with pretty desklets? And this will make me a more productive person?
While I understand that GNOME has its admirers, and it can't be classified as a failure, it sure hasn't lived up to the hype of the early days.
o oser.png
GNOME was touted as being a real competitor to KDE, before the days of Qt being dually-licensed under the GPL. There was some initial progress, but since about 2000 it seems that KDE has been the leader. Ever since Miguel became more focused on Mono, the quality of GNOME really decreased.
One notable incident was the terrible GNOME file chooser. You can see it here:
http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/2.0/gtk/filech
The many usability problems are well known, and were much discussed. One major flaw was the inability to enter in a pathname or filename manually. The lack of path separators made the top breadcrumb trail difficult to follow at times. The 'Places' pane wasted a lot of space when it listed few items. The file list didn't show enough detail about each file. It wasn't possible to view only certain file types.
Frankly, it was a rather massive mistake to include that dialog. When compared to the dialogs of KDE, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows, it was the black sheep. What was worse, on some platforms non-GNOME applications like Mozilla Firefox made use of that dialog, in turn making their usability a nightmare. While things have gotten better, and the newer dialog is a slight improvement, the mistake was still very costly.
I personally know about six people who used GNOME, and swore that they'd never touch it again after seeing that monstrosity. One went back to Windows, to the best of my knowledge. The rest switched to KDE, and have been quite pleased, as far as I know.
I think that the GNOME file chooser disaster is one incident that all GUI developers should learn from. At least then it wasn't a total waste.
According to the latest research by the Yankee Group, it is also cheaper than maintaining a Linux desktop. However, Microsoft Vista, with its productivity whatsits and glossyness will be cheaper, more productive, and more attractive.
I have freaks! I did something right...
Ribbons : MS Products :: Ribbons : Bicycles
They don't aid in the functionality, they only appear to make things look faster, and after all is said and done, you look like a big sissy bitch for using them.
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
Ideally the computer should just know what you want to do and do it for you. The problem is telling the computer what to do. I'm surprised that voice-recognition hasn't progressed further. The Apple OSX voice stuff is pretty cool but not responsive enough to be useable. And all it does is integrate into the window manager. Why would I want to ask the computer to open a window if I just want to ask a question? For instance, say I want to know what time it is. I can't just ask the computer, "Computer, what time is it?" Instead, I have to say, "Computer, open clock" and then read the time. Maybe some feedback would make it better. Communication requires feedback. Maybe the computer could respond, like the XO of a ship responds to the captain: "Make turns for 30 knots" XO: "30 knots, aye"
I think a big problem is the mouse. The mouse is so great for so much, yet it falls short. I know they have mice that have practically a whole keyboard on them. I'd like to see that idea extended beyond the window manager also.
One thing that has really excited me recently is the Optimus dynamic keyboard over at artlebedev.com. Thinking more about adapting the interface around the user and the software is important. A lot of that will be workflow analysis, such as "User A always saves before printing, so if they save, make the print icon easier to find and click." will be necessary.
A lot of what needs to be done the computer can do for us. The hidden options in MS Word are a good example of this. Although it was a support nightmare when it first came out, it really helps speed up the work when you are doing common repetitive tasks. This could be expanded to allow different hidden options depending on what you're working on. For instance, if you're writing a letter, addresses and envelope stuff should magically appear, but it should not show up if you're writing a scientific paper.
One thing that the MS monoculture has brought us is a somewhat standard UI experience for most users. That would be impossible with 100 competing OS's. The web does not offer that opportunity except maybe through some toolkits like Swing (which sucks), or Ruby on rails with the prototype.js. The monoculture has stifled innovation, however, so I hope in the future there will be more people thinking about design when they make their interface and MS being open enough with this Aero stuff to allow designers freedom to make something new. I seriously doubt that will happen, however.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
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 --.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
Moving multiple arbitrarily named and arbitrarily chosen files from one folder to the next (or other similar action).
Altering the arrangement of a screen.
Anything having to do with graphic design.
Oh, and:
For a simple example, look at a spreadsheet in its most basic form. Tab goes to the next column over, return goes to the next row down. Entire usage of the software can be made in a text screen, and FAR quicker than entering a number, moving to the mouse, moving the mouse to the next cell, clicking, then moving back to the keyboard, when instead you can enter a number, hit return, enter a number, hit return, etc.
A mouse is not fundamental to a GUI, and a good GUI allows for the same keyboard-driven arrangement that your "text screen" spreadsheet does. In fact, using a GUI lets you do things that you can't easily do with a keyboard alone--such as pick a few arbitrary cells to perform a quick calculation on.
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
So if I'm airbrushing a busy background out of a photo, which has enough colour variation to make it a bit confusing where the background ends and main thing begins (I edit photos for the technical manuals I write for industrial equipment), you can do this in GIM with scripting?! Cool!
What about (Microsoft's) Bob?
Shouldn't that be from Stanford Research Institute to xerox to...
SRI is where Engelbart and crew started (he later ended up at Xerox PARC). What the doremouse said has a good review of the beginings of the PC.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
We already have that with CRT monitors... it's called burn-in
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I find it interesting that the examples of bad GUIs are 3/4 Microsoft. While those three are bad (Clippy? Bob? Ew. I get adaptive menues, though. The idea is valid, to a point.)
The Apple example, handwriting recognition on the Newton, is a good gaff. Which is to say it isn't something that any rational person would look out and say "That's dumb. Don't do that." It isn't Clippy. It isn't Bob. It's trying to get the computer to adapt to the person rather than getting the person to adapt to the computer. The big win for Palm was that Grafitti forced the user to adapt to the computer. Our handwriting is the way it is (hopefully) so that other people can read it to. Typewriting is not a natural thing, even though some of use geeks reach WPM speeds that make it seem like it is.
When we're talking about verbal user interface gaffs, we'll find similarly goofy things, and we'll find things that made sense intellectually but didn't work in reality. That's what we call research, kids.
Unless we're talking about GUIs that can catch fish, shouldn't it be "gaffe"?
GUIs are great for utilities that one uses only once in a while, say every two months. Going through a man page, keeping track of options, etc., is a nuisance, and memorization is not worthwhile for rare use. Likewise, well-organized GUI menus are nice for allowing access to commands that one uses rarely. Ideally, there are keyboard shortcuts for common commands.
I firmly believe that when it comes to GUIs, change is almost always for the worse. One reason for this is that once a set of GUI conventions has become established, change is disconcerting--you now have to accustom yourself to the new "look" or to the new way that the GUI works. That inconvenience is rarely repaid by the alleged advantages of the change.
As an example, consider the difference between the Windows 2000 and XP desk tops. Just how is the XP desktop better than the older one? I sure couldn't see any advantage to it. Yet, if you were to use the darn thing (and not switch to the "classic" view), you'd have to figure out again how to do a bunch of stuff you already knew how to do before the interface changed. This is progress? Even at the detail level, the changes are silly and unhelpful. Look at those three-dimensional window title bars. Why is that bulgy look better than the less obtrusive flat title bar of the old Win 2K interface? What convenience or information is added by the 3D bulge? Or how about the XP icon for video options--it's a screen with a flat paintbrush on it instead of the 2K screen with a round paintbrush and ruler in front of it. The two look different enough that it takes me a couple of extra seconds to find that icon in the Control Panel whenever I'm forced to use the default XP interface. It's not that the new icon is better or worse than the old one--but why ever change a familiar, easy to recognize icon? It's done to create the illusion of progress, of course.
Making icons look "cooler" in successive iterations of software is one of my particular pet peeves. Whenever someone releases a new version of their software, they think that people won't believe they got their money's worth if the GUI looks the same--so they jazz up the icons. Usually, this means adding more detail, even though this violates the basic principle of the icon: that it should be simple and easy to recognize. In other words...icons should be iconic.
That brings me to another reason why software publishers change GUIs. From the article:
Excuse me, but if you've got "exploded" features, then you do not have a problem that can be solved by a revamped GUI--you have bloatware. Clean up the mess, and start over.
I haven't seen these new "ribbons" MS is talking about for LongVista, but even the name is dumb. Look, the people at Xerox Park gave us the foundation of a great GUI, and there's no reason to change that basic set of visual metaphors until there's a fundamental change in the mechanics of the computer/human interface. The requirements for a good GUI are well-understood: it should be as simple as possible, it should be consistent between applications, it should use easily recognized familiar symbols and conventions. It most definitely should not change from one moment to the next according to the notions of some guy in Redmond who thinks he can anticipate what I want to do.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
> 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.
I agree with you that Gimp is not user freindly. I have adapted, and can use it to do what I want to do.. but I did give up on it many previous times.. but I got further in it than Blender. All I can tell you, is if you don't like Gimp then submit your complaints to the Gimp developers, and if you get no satisfaction then get your money back.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
How about just not having to remember commands. My brain has 7 slots of active memory, I'd prefer to use all 7 instead of having to swap shit out so I can remember a command, or the options that command takes.
How we know is more important than what we know.
ribbon menu sounds like Word 1.0 on DOS' menu
hopefully file saves can go back to this intuitive nirvana...
Transfer -> Disk
Huh, really? Well first of all, without a graphical user interface, you can't see images, or even nice formatting. You also can't arrange windows to maximize your productivity, or for that matter do two things at once at all.
Having a GUI doesn't mean always using the mouse. The mouse is a great tool, but so is the keyboard. Sure, you use the keyboard to navigate spreadsheet cells, but what about when you want to bring up a web page next to the spreadsheet to read off of it? I generally mainly use the keyboard when using my editor of choice, TextMate. But when there is something I don't know a command for, I use the mouse. It's far more efficient than searching man pages. Plus, I can arrange windows to serve my needs, far better than trying to make it work in text only emacs.
For most things, the GUI is better than a CLI. Many good CLI applications are a hack to make it more like a GUI while still being usable in a text terminal.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
...absolutely all we need is halfway thoughtful, somewhat intelligent application of the paradigms we already have.
If software developers just spent an extra hour to watch an untrained user play with their software... and their managers gave them a couple of extra weeks to incorporate what they learned by watching... that would have more effect on software usability than the introduction of new techniques.
The problem today is that so much software leaves you gasping with amazement at the seeming perversity of their design. It's been observed since the day Windows 95 was introduced that it is stupid to turn off your computer from a button labelled "Start." Microsoft has had over a decade and one, two, three, four, five major software releases to do something about it, and they haven't. If they don't get it yet, all the pie menus and gestures and voice recognition isn't going to help them.
You may cry foul because this isn't strictly speaking, a software problem, but will you take a gander at the button layout on this portable DVD player? In case you don't get it--it's so mind-boggling it took me a while to get it--the northeast button moves you east, the southeast button moves you south, and so forth. That's why every button has a little printed arrow next to it.
An awful lot of modern software design seems to me to be be putting little printed arrows next to utterly misplaced buttons.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Especially when they're talking about using it through the command-line, for chrissakes. I can definitely think of some good examples of the command-line speeding up tasks immensely, but when you're dealing with graphics it's absurd to suggest most of the tasks (i.e., not mathematically generating abstract patterns or completing very simple tasks like red-eye correction) for which people use Photoshop can be completed more efficiently through scripting.
Graphic-intensive solutions for graphic-intensive problems...
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
. . . pick a few arbitrary cells to perform a quick calculation on.
Actually, I rather try to avoid such things.
"And how did you arrive at this result?"
"Ooooooh, ya know. I picked a few arbitrary cells and performed a quick calculation on them."
KFG
Agreed, the old GTK file chooser is an absolute monstrosity. Looks like relief is finally on the way with the new GNOME 2.16 http://www.gnome.org/start/2.16/notes/C/rnbackend. html
Penny - plain text accounting
A GUI is intended to make it easy and intuitive to find out how to do something when you are not sure how to do it (discovery made easy). This is its greatest asset and its greatest liability, because this encourages users to use the mouse and look for buttons to do things. Which is counter productive and slow, but makes it easy for a complete novice to find out how to do something.
The idea GUI makes it easy for the newbie to do something and as they use it more would teach them quicker ways to do things. For example, it would allow a user to find functionality quickly when it needs to be discovered, but then teach the user more efficient ways of doing that task. It could display recently discovered functionality, for example, 'cut' as a GUI button, but teach the user that they can use ctrl-C to achieve the same task. once the user starts to use the shortcut it could hide the GUI button, say after they have used the shortcut 5 times, saving valuable screen real-estate and not encouraging the user to always use the button. The user could easily discover it again if they needed, and perhaps lock certain buttons for complex tasks or things that they prefer to use the GUI for.
The unfortunate truth is though, that this type of functionality would only sell to 5% of the population (basically slashdotites), because the rest of the world thinks that something is easy to use only because it is pretty and has lots of nice buttons with easy to understand graphics (which is true for a system that makes discovery easy). They don't know what is good for them!
Hard work is just an accumulation of the easy things that you didn't do when you should have.
Er, yikes. What an interesting mix of OS X, Windows NT, and XP. Not necessarily a bad mix, however.
But perhaps they should put a few hours into fixing the hyphenation algorithm. That's just laughably bad. happe-ning, all-ows, communica-te, vario-us, prog-ram. Every hyphenation is wrong.
I think that by convention every function available in an application should be accessible either directly or indirectly from the main menu.
.ini files like on windows, or the registry, etc). Using a scripting language to configure the application makes the file more difficult to edit for novice users, makes syntax errors more likely because the syntax is necessarily more complex, and makes parsing by third party applications more difficult because, again, the syntax is necessarily more complex. Additionally, a scripting language is just stupid overkill for a configuration file that needs to turn on and off options and specify a path. By definition, a configuration file shouldn't be doing anything *conditionally*. If something like that is in a .conf file, than you put it in the wrong place. Sadly, many linux daemans are guilty of this (especially apache, which is otherwise a nice and powerful web server).
This used to be more or less a design standard (I think apple published it in their human interface guidelines?). For the most part, people use keyboard combos, toolbar buttons, or context menus; however, the main menu serves as a kind of index of all of the functionality that is available in the application. On macintosh it is also a place to quickly look up the the keyboard shortcut binding for a function.
Unfortunately, some developers have gotten lazy recently and made functionality available through only one source, instead of the usual triplet of main menu, context menu, and keyboard bindings. This is annoying when someone makes functionality that is only accessible by context menu, but it is crippling when functionality is only accessible from a keystroke. Worse, sometimes there is no documentation as to what keystroke is needed, and the functionality becomes less of a feature and more of an easter egg for whoever stumbles upon it.
Sadly, Linux software is the main offender here. Unfortunately many developers are totally unaware of the importance and difficulty of good UI design, and writing a GUI becomes an afterthought. In large companies this is rectified because people who specialize in UI design are hired, and on macintosh and windows, apple and microsoft publish UI standards that all applications should meet, but no one seems to be providing this service for Linux.
One other deadly sin of software design is writing software that is only configurable through a text file. Having a human readable text file to configure the application is a feature, but *not* having a preferences GUI in you application that wraps all supported features in the config file is just downright lazy.
Worse are applications that use a scripting language to configure themselves instead of a regular record format (i.e. xml properties files like apple uses, or
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
ny filesystem manipulation?
ANY filesystem manipulation?
Like if I wanted to sort my digital images (with the helpful camera name IMG0030-IMG0090) based on which ones were pictures of my cat? That would be quicker with a CLI?
Come on, man. Think about these things for a few minutes before you post them. You'll look smarter.
Comment of the year
Many vendors and frameworks have been trying for years to lead the UI movement.
But neither win32, mfc, qt, gtk, kde, wxWindows can find the promise of separate the OS rigidity from the UI
Just Squeak give us more freedom, but from a business perspective Adobe is playing a very strong card with Flex
Imagine a creative designer with all the freedom to create the best UI without more limitations!
We can see some real examples of Windows interfaces in flash like ScreenTime
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.
It makes sense when you understand a) the purpose of the "Start Menu" and b) the history behind it.
The Start Menu is the "one stop shop" for initial tasks in Windows - it's the UI element you go to (or are supposed to) for launching programs, configuring the machine, searching, help, etc, etc. It is (roughly) equivalent to Classic MacOS's Apple Menu, the NeXT Dock, and similar "do it from here" elements in other GUIs. Logically, in Windows, the "Shut Down" command belongs in this UI element and nowhere else (with the possible exception of a dedicated button on the taskbar, like Ubuntu does - although back in the day the problem then would have been wha icon to put on the button).
*Originally* (in the first "Chicago" betas), the Start Menu wasn't actually called the "Start Menu" and didn't have "Start" on it - it was just a button with the Windows logo, much like the GNOME and KDE versions. However, during their usability testing, Microsoft found that users couldn't actually figure out what to do when the system first booted and all they had was an empty desktop and taskbar, with a little Windows logo at one end and a clock at the other (I can't even remember if the clock was there at that stage). So the button got a label - "Start" - to signify that it was the UI element where you "started" to do everything.
First impressions count a lot, so if you take away the Start button most people will feel a bit lost and will have a negative experience. Thus people won't want to let go of Start even if it is in their longer term interests to learn something better.
It's interesting to note that in Vista, the "Start" label is gone. Presumably Microsoft's usability studies have concluded that the "Start Menu" UI element is now so entrenched, users no longer need to be taught what it is.
--help and man are the problem. I've got 7 chunks in mind, I need to write a command to use them, shit, what's the name of that option again? man foo. Ahh, I see, now what was it was I doing again? Oh yeah, did I write that down? No, damn, better go back and find it. When you use the command line you actually learn not to keep 7 things in mind. You keep about 4 or 5 in mind and write the rest down cause you know you're gunna need 2 or 3 slots just to get the commands to work. GUIs eliminate that. And before you start scream "that's not true" or "I don't do that", scientific usability studies have shown this to be the case, go do some research.
How we know is more important than what we know.
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!
GIMP has a pretty good separation between the interface and the backing engine. Because of this, you can get something like GIMPShop, which is a Photoshop-style interface atop GIMP's engine. So if you really hate the GIMP's interface, don't use it. Sheesh.
Also, when you say that Photoshop has scripting, do you mean that you can use a full-featured scripting language like Perl to execute Photoshop commands, possibly without even opening the GUI? Or is it an attempt to make a scripting language without requiring the user to type, by recording actions and making the user drag them around? I only saw it once, but it looked like the latter. I could, of course, be wrong.
I still wish GIMP had the "Cutout" plugin that Photoshop has had for years and years. I loved that thing, and "Posterize" just looks like junk in comparison.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I say this as a KDE enthusiast who has a background with being in love with GNOME: How come no mockups like the ones you linked and the ones found on many many other places online have not been adopted yet into KDE4? Matter of fact, why is it that KDE4 and QT4 itself chugging along at such a slow pace? I guess I should be grateful that KDE3 is still seeing so much attention to detail, because it's only recently been able to woo me away from my GNOME desktop.
Also, I have to respectfully disagree with the usefulness and attractiveness of those mockups. The first I can't even figure out. This is an overcomplication of the desktop idea, in my opinion. A taskbar doesn't need to display any of that information, and that task basket seems like a solution in search of a problem. For the second one, well, I dunno, I've been with a setup similar to that for a long time on my Linux boxes, except for the blueness... Call me crazy but I like and always have enjoyed how Konqueror looks in the first place, and I have very rarely seen a mockup that improves upon its interface. KDE-Look has a lot to browse through. A lot of mockups I see around are basically trying to make Konqueror look like Xandros File Manager, which in turn looks a lot like Explorer.
But yeah, like I was saying: There has been no actual work yet that makes KDE4 any different visually than KDE3, or if there is, I sure as hell havn't found any screenshots.
"We invented personal computing." - Bill Gates
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.
I often wonder why people continually make this assumption. There is no evidence for this point of view, at least none that I've seen.
Sounds like wishful thinking to me.
A blog about stuff.
Au contraire!
It might not be the most user-friendly way to do things, but I promise you this, a person with good knowledge about a command line will be much more efficient at typical those tasks available through the command line than an equally knowlegdeable GUI user.
From your statement it also sounds as if you are saying that Linux is unable to provide users with a graphical user interface equal in complexity to Windows or OSX. This only proves you do not know what you're talking about.
Scully: Should we arrest David Copperfield?
Mulder: Yes we should, but not for this.
Don't change the position of menu items and controls, highlight or emphasize controls the AI thinks will be useful. Instead of tucking away infrequently used menu items under a submenu or pinning frequently used controls onto a ribbon, why not just change the color or text size of menus/controls according to past use or predicted use?
AI should point out where the menus/controls are rather than risk disorienting the user by moving them around. For example, if the AI determines that the user will probably want to sort the selected data, maybe the menu containing sort can change to a "hot" color while, say, the view menu turns cooler. This way the program is teaching the user a consistent way to do the task.
This is already being done in WinXP, e.g. newly installed programs are highlighted. Visual Studio also has a nice dynamic help panel that directs you how to do things rather than just doing it for you (and leaving you at the whim of the AI when you need to do the task next time).
When I teach people how to use a program, I often find myself telling the user what parts of the window/screen are significant to look at during what particular tasks. Computers are gradually getting better at guessing what you want to do, but since we're not there yet, let's keep the AI's predictions suggestions instead of a forced rearranging of your environment.
Meta will eat itself
Read the article I linked to: it describes how TOPS-20 programs and commands can document themselves to the CLI, so it can provide the user with consistent completion and full help about the parameters, insert (and ignore) noise words, and provide completion over alternative symbol spaces for special types of arguments, like host names. That was quite useful when ARPANET addresses were only 8 bits long, and you could type "teln mit-?" to get a list of all host names beginning with "mit-" that you could telnet to. TOPS-20 command line help and completion is much more comprehensive and standardized than the hodge-podge of Unix shells and utilities and weird scripting languages and quoting conventions like: find . -name '*~' -exec rm "{}" \;
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com