I have been a GUI designer now for going on 5 years. Although I have many great new ideas for how users could better interact with their computers, I can't get paid to implement most of them. The current belief among most companies is that if you change the way computers act you will scare away most of your customers. This and the fact that a good program is worth millions in sales, makes very few companies feel like taking the risk (and very few OPEN SOURCE projects from the looks of KDE/GNOME/ENLIGHTMENT/ETC). It wasn't until just the last couple of years that I have been able to get companies where I have worked to let me seriously change the way that my programs look.
Having worked with many other UI Designers in the same situation, I can safely say that NEW UI's are indeed around the corner. This is going to require that people learn new ways to use their computers, and this may scare many current users. As long as the new interface is more efficient it will eventually become the new standard. Five years ago almost no one knew what a start menu was and now every OS has one. For those of you that don't remember, everyone complained. With such a minor change being balked at, imagine what a 3D UI controlled with a gyro sensor 6 point mouse is going to do.
HINT: Damn near cause street riots, especially if MS does it, right?
The last obstacle is: who will be the 1st person to fund one of us?? After all man can not live on bread alone, EVEN LINUS PAYS THE BILLS THESE DAYS.
This all being said, until a major funded project takes off, you will have to deal with a few new features per year eased onto the corporations and the public alike. After all new a paradigm would scare away even most of you. This is easily proveable, just look at the multitude of 3d UI hate fan messages this article seems to have garnered from the TROLL FARMS.
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I have been a GUI designer now for going on 5 years. Although I have many great new ideas for how users could better interact with their computers, I can't get paid to implement most of them. The current belief among most companies is that if you change the way computers act you will scare away most of your customers. This and the fact that a good program is worth millions in sales, makes very few companies feel like taking the risk (and very few OPEN SOURCE projects from the looks of KDE/GNOME/ENLIGHTMENT/ETC). It wasn't until just the last couple of years that I have been able to get companies where I have worked to let me seriously change the way that my programs look.
Having worked with many other UI Designers in the same situation, I can safely say that NEW UI's are indeed around the corner. This is going to require that people learn new ways to use their computers, and this may scare many current users. As long as the new interface is more efficient it will eventually become the new standard. Five years ago almost no one knew what a start menu was and now every OS has one. For those of you that don't remember, everyone complained. With such a minor change being balked at, imagine what a 3D UI controlled with a gyro sensor 6 point mouse is going to do.
HINT: Damn near cause street riots, especially if MS does it, right?
The last obstacle is: who will be the 1st person to fund one of us?? After all man can not live on bread alone, EVEN LINUS PAYS THE BILLS THESE DAYS.
This all being said, until a major funded project takes off, you will have to deal with a few new features per year eased onto the corporations and the public alike. After all new a paradigm would scare away even most of you. This is easily proveable, just look at the multitude of 3d UI hate fan messages this article seems to have garnered from the TROLL FARMS.