The main reason 3d and voice aren't all that viable as interfaces now is because the technology is still crude. I think it would be a mistake to rule them out in the future, although voice has some social drawbacks. Do I really want to announce to everyone in a room what I am doing on my computer? Do I want co-workers to hear my e-mail? Or know what URL I just requested? That's great if you live and work alone, I suppose, and don't have to worry about people snickering. As for minimalism, that's great when it's appropriate. A news site should be mostly text. A site selling products should have thumbnails AND text. An image gallery might conceivably need no text at all. The problems associated with slow-loading pages are going away. In 3-5 years, usability will be a totally different animal. High bandwidth and faster computers will make many experimental interfaces possible in apps and on the web which would currently be unusable. The reason banners and animations are a pain now is that they simply take too long to show up, but that's changing, and fast. My college degree was film, and believe it or not, it is possible to predict with almost certain accuracy where most people will look first at any given image. Scary, but true. Humans tend to look at eyes and eye-like objects first, which explains why so many effective banners contain eyes or faces. After that, movement, then light colors such as white attract the eye. It's literally possible to lead the eye anywhere you want if you know these rather simple principles. I've never seen any research on whether web surfers click in the same order, but I'd be willing to bet they do. When bandwidth is no langer an issue, we're likely to see more animation(movement), not less. More images. More faces. Why? Because many sites are commercial, and if you have something to sell, the first thing you have to do is get the potential customer to LOOK. What we'll see eventually is conventional film and advertising psychology used in more sophisticated ways on our computers. In a sense, that's going to be frightening, but it will increase usability when web and OS designers begin to take advantage of these techniques to help the user rather than just impress him. What I'm hoping is that the gosh-wow novelty factor of all these multimedia elements will wear off soon, and we'll see a shift toward using them toward a purpose. Maybe eventually we'll even see them used for artistic purpose. There's no reason an OS can't be a work of art. We're in a transitional stage right now, and people are using multimedia elements primarily "because we can." It's distracting to novices and frustrating for power users, but it will change the day the cheap tricks fail to impress. Yes, most of the portals are minimal, but users are starting to migrate away from the major portals in favor of smaller sites such as Slashdot. So-called "vertical portals" are hot, and they don't share as many attributes as the majors. In fact, idiosyncrasy often helps. There seems to be a prevailing assumption that there's a one-size-fits all GUI out there, but nothing could be further from the truth. One of the real innovations of the web is that you're free to find or create the kind of interface you prefer. For similar reasons, I seriously doubt there will ever be one interface that all Unix/Linux users will prefer, and that's great. Newbies will always prefer the simplest interface they can use to do the job. Many users will migrate to something more sophisticated as time goes by. Is there some good reason so many people are pursuing Unified GUI Theory?
It's worth wondering whether a 3 year old girl sending blank e-mails to grandma would have been news. Something about your post hit a nerve, because in my experience, the gender bias is lifelong. I wanted to play around with computers ever since I saw Star Trek at 6, but in the dark ages when I went to junior high school, I was told I could not take the computer class because "the boys already know all that stuff and you would just slow them down." In high school, I was unable to find anyone to show me how to use our school's one Apple computer because it was valuable "and we can't risk your breaking it." It wasn't until college that I managed to teach myself to type by playing Zork 1 while the guys were all busy getting stoned. I bought my first computer with my own money instead of a car, and I couldn't get anyone to teach me how to use it, so I taught myself. I was getting a very late start by then, and the fact that I managed to pull a technical career out of a hat was just persistence and good fortune. Sure, if you're a girl, you can get there. You can even be a prodigy like the little boy in the article, but even now, you won't be likely to find a lot of help or encouragement. It's no wonder there aren't many little girl geeks. They've been told they'll break it, that it's not something they'd enjoy, that the boys have been computing since birth and it's too late to start. The games offered for girls are unexciting and insipid. How many Barbie and Disney programs is a parent going to buy? If anyone out there has a young daughter and is considering buying a computer for her, for goodness sake, don't buy the Barbie computer. If you must buy a kiddie computer, buy the Hotwheels version, because chances are your child will be better off knowing math than fashion design. I still hear "Cool, a girl who's heard of Linux!" The salesmen always try to lead me to the eOne. My mailbox is stuffed with unsolicited ads for eve.com and women.com. And here I am at slashdot, wondering if that makes me a freak of nature. Personally, I don't think what the 3 yr. old can do is all that impressive. It sounds like he is just learning to read, so how much use can he really be getting out of the internet? In all likelihood, his parents are pushing him. Show me a 3 year old girl who can do the same, and then I would be amazed. I'd be amazed they let her touch the machine, for starts. And no, I'm not a feminist, just a realist.
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The main reason 3d and voice aren't all that viable as interfaces now is because the technology is still crude. I think it would be a mistake to rule them out in the future, although voice has some social drawbacks. Do I really want to announce to everyone in a room what I am doing on my computer? Do I want co-workers to hear my e-mail? Or know what URL I just requested? That's great if you live and work alone, I suppose, and don't have to worry about people snickering. As for minimalism, that's great when it's appropriate. A news site should be mostly text. A site selling products should have thumbnails AND text. An image gallery might conceivably need no text at all. The problems associated with slow-loading pages are going away. In 3-5 years, usability will be a totally different animal. High bandwidth and faster computers will make many experimental interfaces possible in apps and on the web which would currently be unusable. The reason banners and animations are a pain now is that they simply take too long to show up, but that's changing, and fast. My college degree was film, and believe it or not, it is possible to predict with almost certain accuracy where most people will look first at any given image. Scary, but true. Humans tend to look at eyes and eye-like objects first, which explains why so many effective banners contain eyes or faces. After that, movement, then light colors such as white attract the eye. It's literally possible to lead the eye anywhere you want if you know these rather simple principles. I've never seen any research on whether web surfers click in the same order, but I'd be willing to bet they do. When bandwidth is no langer an issue, we're likely to see more animation(movement), not less. More images. More faces. Why? Because many sites are commercial, and if you have something to sell, the first thing you have to do is get the potential customer to LOOK. What we'll see eventually is conventional film and advertising psychology used in more sophisticated ways on our computers. In a sense, that's going to be frightening, but it will increase usability when web and OS designers begin to take advantage of these techniques to help the user rather than just impress him. What I'm hoping is that the gosh-wow novelty factor of all these multimedia elements will wear off soon, and we'll see a shift toward using them toward a purpose. Maybe eventually we'll even see them used for artistic purpose. There's no reason an OS can't be a work of art. We're in a transitional stage right now, and people are using multimedia elements primarily "because we can." It's distracting to novices and frustrating for power users, but it will change the day the cheap tricks fail to impress. Yes, most of the portals are minimal, but users are starting to migrate away from the major portals in favor of smaller sites such as Slashdot. So-called "vertical portals" are hot, and they don't share as many attributes as the majors. In fact, idiosyncrasy often helps. There seems to be a prevailing assumption that there's a one-size-fits all GUI out there, but nothing could be further from the truth. One of the real innovations of the web is that you're free to find or create the kind of interface you prefer. For similar reasons, I seriously doubt there will ever be one interface that all Unix/Linux users will prefer, and that's great. Newbies will always prefer the simplest interface they can use to do the job. Many users will migrate to something more sophisticated as time goes by. Is there some good reason so many people are pursuing Unified GUI Theory?
It's worth wondering whether a 3 year old girl sending blank e-mails to grandma would have been news. Something about your post hit a nerve, because in my experience, the gender bias is lifelong. I wanted to play around with computers ever since I saw Star Trek at 6, but in the dark ages when I went to junior high school, I was told I could not take the computer class because "the boys already know all that stuff and you would just slow them down." In high school, I was unable to find anyone to show me how to use our school's one Apple computer because it was valuable "and we can't risk your breaking it." It wasn't until college that I managed to teach myself to type by playing Zork 1 while the guys were all busy getting stoned. I bought my first computer with my own money instead of a car, and I couldn't get anyone to teach me how to use it, so I taught myself. I was getting a very late start by then, and the fact that I managed to pull a technical career out of a hat was just persistence and good fortune. Sure, if you're a girl, you can get there. You can even be a prodigy like the little boy in the article, but even now, you won't be likely to find a lot of help or encouragement. It's no wonder there aren't many little girl geeks. They've been told they'll break it, that it's not something they'd enjoy, that the boys have been computing since birth and it's too late to start. The games offered for girls are unexciting and insipid. How many Barbie and Disney programs is a parent going to buy? If anyone out there has a young daughter and is considering buying a computer for her, for goodness sake, don't buy the Barbie computer. If you must buy a kiddie computer, buy the Hotwheels version, because chances are your child will be better off knowing math than fashion design. I still hear "Cool, a girl who's heard of Linux!" The salesmen always try to lead me to the eOne. My mailbox is stuffed with unsolicited ads for eve.com and women.com. And here I am at slashdot, wondering if that makes me a freak of nature. Personally, I don't think what the 3 yr. old can do is all that impressive. It sounds like he is just learning to read, so how much use can he really be getting out of the internet? In all likelihood, his parents are pushing him. Show me a 3 year old girl who can do the same, and then I would be amazed. I'd be amazed they let her touch the machine, for starts. And no, I'm not a feminist, just a realist.