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10/GUI — an Interface For Multi-Touch Input
Naznarreb writes "R. Clayton Miller has an extremely impressive GUI concept he's calling 10/GUI (video; written description here). Essentially, it combines the high-bandwidth input possibilities of multi-touch interfaces with the ease and immediacy of a mouse. The video is quite interesting, and, for me at least, pretty jaw dropping. This is a dramatic re-imagining of the current mouse/screen schema, one that I think has significant potential."
Theres still a few problems though. For one, mouse is an incredibly precise input device - you can pretty easily move it along same pixel axis, or get it precisely to a specific pixel. It's hard to do that with your fingers because the area they touch is a large one, it's not easy to just move your finger by one pixel and your hand tend to shake a little bit too. If you look at the video, you see everything in the interface is quite big and even a few small windows take lots of place.
Other problem is that now your both hands lay on the wide touch area and you dont have a keyboard. If you put them side to side, you'll only have one hand on the touch area and dont get the full power of it. Moving hands between them all the time is inefficient. Typing on the touch area gives no feedback and again takes your hands of the "mouse".
It would also be quite impossible to play FPS or other kinds of games with this type of setup.
So no, I still dont see touch interfaces replacing the usual keyboard+mouse combo anytime soon. However, I would love to have this kind of system in my living room (either just for the tv, or the computer thats connected to tv screen). It's clumsy to have keyboard or mouse in living (at the moment I have MX Air -mouse, which is okayish), but this would be perfect for such job. Not for a desktop pc replacement though.
How can you over-hype a one-paragraph summary?
Five minutes into the video and I'm still none the wiser as to how this is supposed to be an improvement in the use of my computer, or more comfortable, or easier. The "real-world" demo towards the end doesn't seem at all impressive and leaves out an awful lot of computer uses (we'll start with gaming, because it's easier to pick on multitouch for that).
Why is everyone determined to sell me multitouch but can't actually show a decent use that justifies the price/hassle/upheaval/software development costs?
I love the concept, but I imagine myself stretching over the touchpad area to type, which wouldn't be very ergonomical. I can also imagine that the base of my palms would rest on the touchpad area occasionally as I type.
I really like the idea, but not so much the implementation. Two observations, and one theoretical quibble:
1) On the hardware side, turning the multitouch interface into a second touch screen that could work as a mouse-like input device (like the video shows), or bring up a keyboard (like the lower half of the iphone, only taking up the whole space) would be preferable. A keyboard without physical feedback would be awkward at first, but after getting used to it, you could do away with a physical keyboard entirely. You could also stick meta-materials from the UI down there. You could have something like a system dock with quick links to open programs and switch windows. And you could have, say, the clock, wireless indicator, battery indicator, etc. down there. It would cut down on clutter on the main screen.
2) On the software side, I'm not sure that I see the advantage of their version of a linear window manager the way they have it set up. Instead, it seems more useful to fan applications in and out, turning the name bars on the side into tabs. Window one opens and slips into place with its name bar on the left side of the screen. Window two opens from the right, partially obscuring window one. Window three moves window two all the way to the left, leaving window one entirely obscured, except for a tab. And so on. That way, you have a visual representation of every window on the screen at all times. Much simpler to track than having to zoom out.
And my theoretical quibble: I know, it's odd coming from a longtime mac user, but I dislike the concept of a physical UI so closely tied to a particular software system that you have no alternative but to use them together. I look at this, and I fear "The Windows Computer of the Future." You buy a multi-touch computer that has Microsoft's future OS on it, and the hardware interface is so specific that you couldn't, if you wanted, chuck the software and install Linux. I can imagine a Linux-like alternative being written for this interface. But I can also imagine a set of patents that would encumber alternate OSes, such that you end up with a One Computer One OS system. Which is far, far too restrictive, and invites vertical monopolistic practices.
It seems that every time an "improved" interface to your computer is invented, they get more complicated whilst simultaneously looking simpler.
This particular interface perhaps has potential for the expert user (like most slashdot folks), but I don't see your average housewife or Grandpa wanting to remember how many fingers to use for what.
And just what are you supposed to be doing with the fingers not touching the screen? Hold them in the air?
How about your left hand? Keep it in your pocket until you need a context menu?
I'm guessing you will still need a keyboard; where is that supposed to fit on your desk?
Apple got it right with the iPhone - by restricting the buttons and losing the stylus they have greatly simplified the interface.
*I* personally miss the hardware buttons from my Windows phone and taskbar - but those things were sacrificed for the greater good.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Apple got its multitouch technology by buying a company called FingerWorks. FingerWorks' primary product was just like what 10/GUI describes: a multitouch surface that could either replace they keyboard or the mouse(pad). It largely failed in the market.
People use the keyboard and mouse because they really work well. If people did want more DOF, it would be easy to add more sensors to a standard mouse, for example to record twisting, pushing, and other pressures, but even that isn't catching on.
Another idea that keeps bubbling up is the idea of pressure sensitive keyboards; they also keep failing because the resulting interactions just become too complex and add little benefit.
The real flaw in all these devices is the assumption that the limiting factor in communicating with machines is they "bandwidth" of they keyboard and mouse. It really isn't. Generally, people can think no faster than they can type and mouse, and speeding up the keyboard or mouse any further is pointless.
He was still single clicking from a single point of interest, though he had several points he could choose from, he just had 5 mouse pointers on the screen slid around using the basic inaccurate touch pad finger method. But then again, I for one hate touch pads in general (prefer intellipoint like devices on business class laptops), so I guess maybe I am biased. Seemed to me to be more chaotic than graceful.
You know what other interface uses all 10 fingers...a piano.
Virtuoso pianists can make magic with the interface.
Most people never really get it.
This is the fundamental limitation of all these schemes. The mouse is easy enough that anybody can use it. The more manual dexterity that's required, the more it becomes like learning to play the piano.
From watching the video, it looks like they presuppose quite a high degree of dexterity on the part of the user. To resize an app window in the video, they touched three fingers to the pad, held two of them still while pinch-zooming with the third. Now, you probably don't have to hold two of the fingers still relative to each other, but this still sets the bar quite high in its requirements for independent control of your digits.
This would exclude a lot of users, and not just those who are missing a few fingers. About 10 years ago, I helped set up some web-browsing PC's in a community-college library. One of the things I hadn't anticipated was that some of the older users were lacking in coordination to the extent that it made it difficult for them to use the PC effectively. Even the task of trying to double-click fast enough to get it to register as a double-click would cause these users to twitch some of their arm muscles, causing the mouse to scoot a couple of inches in the middle of the double-click. They'd try several times to get it right, but the mouse always ended up moving off of the targeted icon before the double-click was complete.
What we eventually had to do was to provide trackballs, so that the user could move the mouse pointer to where they wanted it and then, taking their hand off of the ball part of the trackball, double-click the buttons. So, that is the level of dexterity that some users are at. So, this three-finger-pinch-zooming idea... I could see this being extremely frustrating for them.
I see this as stratifying feature... the have's and have not, the able and the un-able.
I think you're right in a lot of what you're saying, except for this. The problem is that if most people don't feel comfortable, then it won't become a ubiquitous control scheme. Most computers won't come with the appropriate hardware and software support, so it won't be available for most computers you sit down at. That means most people won't get the opportunity to practice it and become comfortable with it.
So there may be some occasional people who have it set up on their own computer and use it themselves, but it'll probably be quite a rarity. Because of this, it probably won't be well supported even on systems where it's supported. Whenever you have some niche thing in computers, you always end up with bugs. The hardware drivers will conflict with some other drivers, or some particular piece of software will render something in a whacky way breaking your nice little unified UI. Part of the reason things like this don't catch on is that, if you want your computer to work well, it's best to stick to well-worn roads.
I like the idea and I'm always interested in new UI ideas, but they always seem to be too complicated and subtle. There's something nice about having a button that you push, and having that button do a clear and expected thing. I always turn off the multitouch stuff on my trackpad, or else it gets activated accidentally at random times, and my browser fonts change size because it interpreted something I did as a "pinch" move.
Here's what I could see as a new mouse alternative: put a small touchpad next to your keyboard with an LCD screen behind it. Most of the time it can work as a normal touchpad like we have in laptops today, even allowing for configurable multi-touch controls. However, you could have it change its display under certain contexts to allow for specialty-functions. Like let's say you press a certain key combination to control your computer's volume, and the pad turns into a graphic equalizer. It could be cool, useful, and not-too-confusing to your grandma.
I blogged this last night. Short version: fail.
Problems:
1. You just doubled the amount of space I need between myself and the monitor.
2. Multitouch allows for more kinds of interaction: true! However, this interface steals ALL of them away from use by the applications.
3. Left and right sides of the screen aren't discoverable. Might as well be top and bottom -- i.e. bottom of the screen for application launching (call it a "dock") and top of the screen for context-specific options (a sort of "bar" of "menus").
4. Linear spatial overload of windows is no better than two-dimensional spatial overload of windows. Labelled zoom-all-the-way-out cheat no better than Expose and application switcher.
5. Where does file management fit into this scheme?
Lukas Mathis calls 10/GUI "one of the most dramatic reimaginations of the desktop user interface I've seen in a long time" but on examination it's an incremental hardware update with no real interface breakthroughs. Keyboard + mouse has gone on for far too long, as has the W.I.M.P. interface. A better direction would be a tactile multitouch surface which can be anything it needs to be, including a keyboard (for any language), coupled with a GUI that represents tasks and actors rather than objects in a space. 10/GUI does nothing about window and document clutter, squinting, scanning large lists, or making the computer's workings and status an organic part of its presentation. The video may be a slick investors' reel, but shows no real progress.
A flat plane of glass sitting on a desk has all the same ergonomics issues a flat keyboard has. The 10GUI concept uses 5th fingers way too much too, just like a standard key board uses 5th fingers too much.
There need to be an input device with both hands resting on the desk with thumbs up and palms facing each. Until they figure out a way for hands to rest in a natural position while inputting, there's going to be big problems with repet. motion injuries. You have to spend too much time in whatever positions manufacturers put you in.
The only one that gonna work without injuries is the natural position hands return to at rest.
Not sure I totally agree. Look and how quickly people took to the iPhone and iTouch gestures. This is just another set of rather simple gestures with a new paradigm on window manipulation.