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."

Comments

Not for desktop pc's, but

[sopssa]

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.

Re:Not for desktop pc's, but

[LBt1st]

At the very end of the video they show a keyboard positioned over the touchpad. So I don't think they're trying to eliminate the keyboard entirely.

Still you've got many valid points. The mouse is still a much needed tool for many tasks.

Re:Not for desktop pc's, but

[smitty777]

Another problem is the assumption of 10 digits. For example, this might be more difficult for someone that is missing a digit or is paralyzed in an arm. In that case, the mouse would have a definite advantage.

Re:Not for desktop pc's, but

[Mysticalfruit]

Fine then, have a mouse as well for super detail work.

I watched the video and I found in very interesting. As someone who's sitting in front of a 24" monitor and I've ~30 windows open, I totally get the clutter thing.

With that all said, what I saw was lots of talk and lots of eye candy. If you go to the 10/GUI website it's completely devoid of any details about hardware, what OS it's going to be supported on, etc.

Until there's more details, I'm calling vaporware on this...

Re:Not for desktop pc's, but

[cwgmpls]

I understand that people with disabilities have computer input needs too. But I don't understand why the fact that we are all differently-abled should prevent people from using their abilities to their fullest capacity.

Does the fact that some people are missing a digit or have paralysis in one arm mean that no one should propose playing a piano with ten fingers? Does that fact that some people don't have feet mean that pianos should not have foot pedals? Of course not.

While we should move forward with good interface designs for people with disabilities, I don't see why we should stand in the way of people using the abilities they do have in a novel, more productive way.

Re:Not for desktop pc's, but

[timeOday]

I switched from VI to emacs about 10 years ago primarily because of emacs' ability to manage multiple windows (by which I mean buffers in this post, not separate X windows), and I still think it offers most all the benefits of 10/GUI! You can have columns of buffers (windows), but also rows (addressing your concern), but they're not just arbitrarily strewn around. You have a high-bandwidth, but precise input channel that doesn't block the screen, called a keyboard. You can easily access a labeled list of open windows. No, I don't expect a resurgence of emacs to wipe out the gui, but people who are designing windowing systems should at least be familiar with how emacs worked. (Maybe emacs borrowed it from lisp machines? I don't know). Granted, keyboards aren't exactly multi-touch (except for modifier keys like SHIFT), but keyboards do utilize the ability to move several fingers at once to achieve high-bandwidth input.

Overhyped

[ledow]

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?

Re:Overhyped

[kevinNCSU]

Because everyone grew up watching Star Trek which clearly shows all computer interfaces are supposed to become glass touchscreens dangit!

It's an interesting implementation

[r_jensen11]

But I'm not sure how many people will be wanting to drag their fingers across a surface for 8 hours a day. One of the benefits of a mouse over a touch service is that there's less friction for the hands- all of the rubbing of objects is between the mouse and the surface.

Can I see this replacing the mouse? No.

Can I see this supplementing the mouse? Yes

Can I see this being placed with a mouse and keyboard? No- the combined three objects would take up too much space (who really has that much desk space?)

Re:It's an interesting implementation

[ceoyoyo]

I use a track pad all day. It's no problem. I even still have fingerprints.

Re:It's an interesting implementation

[MMC Monster]

Apple's multitouch trackpads on their current notebook lines have it right. In fact, they are so good that I wish they would sell a stand alone trackpad to add onto a desktop keyboard. Using gestures to scroll around a window and two finger click or hold and drag are often much faster than moving around with a mouse.

Not that I would ever get rid of a mouse, except (potentially) on a media system with a limited physical keyboard.

Needs a curved surface

[Anonymous Coward]

The flat surface is not ideal from an ergonomic point of view. The touch-sensitive surface should be curved so that the user's hands can be held at a more natural angle. Preferably two domes of soft, touch-sensitive material, and two small raised dots on the top for tactile positioning. Hm? what? sorry, I drifted off there for a moment... what were we talking about?

Replacing current business work interface

[Dripdry]

I disagree with an earlier poster who says this can't replace the desktop interface we know.

He points out that it is inefficient because one has to move hands between keyboard and pad.
It seems to me that this interface can be manipulated with just one hand. that's how the mouse works now. you take your hand off the mouse to work with the full functionality of the keyboard, why couldn't 10/GUI replace that?
Better still, why not have both! The pad can sense a mouse and act as a mouse pad. If you need to use it as a pad move the mouse off, or perhaps use both the mouse AND the pad at the same time (one hand each). I can see a lot of possibilities there. It could clutter a desk, sure, but I'm sure we can solve that problem.

Second, but probably more importantly, I can easily see this for the work I do, which I imagine is similar to many other people.

I use my system (two monitors) for business. I have data on one side of the screen and sometimes excel or word on the other screen. In addition (here's where 10/GUI could be useful) I'll have a pdf open in the background which i need to quickly scroll through ("in adobe, quickly!?" you ask?). With one hand on the mouse I can quickly zip through Morningstar data, and use my free hand (on the pad) to scroll through a document, then quickly zip back and forth, scrolling and zooming as necessary. Right now that's just using a mouse and it can be tiresome to move around with just that little pointer (especially morningstar! oh it would be nice to have a touch interface for that...)

Finally, I need to have a "document scroller" or whatever it is that I can resize and move around, as I find myself with documents that sometimes need to show different parts of their data on screen. Basically I need to be able to "undock" documents so i can use them effectively (like papers on an actual desktop) and then redock them when I'm done.

That would be a beautiful interface that I do feel would save me some time and frustration. I would buy that for my business.

Virtuoso Users only!

[starglider29a]

Yes, this is slick. Yes, it's an improvement. Yes, this will happen. But...

Having seen people have trouble with pressing control and clicking at the same time (to deselect a single item), I foresee a chilly reception, user frustration and a training issue. 10GUI is like playing Mozart among people only able to manage Chop Sticks.

I see this as stratifying feature... the have's and have not, the able and the un-able. I would request this for my workflow, but the run of the mill admins would be stuck with the keyboard. Aside from the social aspect, there is the difficult task of convincing the boss that "you need this, even if the others don't". Good luck with that.

I have grown to hate the windowing paradigm for all the reasons cited. I'm not convinced that the linear arrangement is an improvement. I'm more in favor of multiple monitors, the main screen for the primary task and satellites with multiple windows for ancillary tasks. 10GUI doesn't address this.

going in circles

[jipn4]

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.

An incremental hardware update putting on airs

[SpaceToast]

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.