navas@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David C. Navas) (10/22/90)
In article p554mve@mpirbn.UUCP (Michael van Elst) writes: >In article <28954@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> navas@cory.Berkeley.EDU writes: >>To shame with the iconic interface, >>it just gets in my way. I have, in a sense, graduated from the need for >>the holding hand of <insert name of UI>. >Not quite a good comparison. It's true when the common paradigm (file system >tree) is used with the graphical user interface. But it the interface is >designed well it would hide this, think of Hypermedia. I have. A lot. I dream UI. It oozes out my pores :) Of course, I'm young and inexperienced as well, and so can claim ignorance ;) I like hypermedia as a UI concept not just for it's interconnective capabilities, but for something else that I think I'll keep to myself for the moment. Maybe when I get my health back and can continue Jazzbench... Anyway, I never said that was a *good* comparison, merely one with which I have common-day experience.... In any present day PC system that I know of, it's a point to be considered. Anyway it was specifically aimed against the MAC which, unless 7.0 is a beast, won't have the concept for awhile. The point is, perhaps, more clearly demonstrated in a WordProcessor. One might be tempted to leave all navigation within a wp controlled to a mouse. That may be fine with a novice, but would be a pain for the advanced user who would be wishing for things like SHIFT-ARROW navigation and that lot. The point is that in an ideal world both the beginning and the advanced user would use the system in the same way, but in my experience this is not, in fact, the case. Therefore, any system which does not incorporate the flexibility of a GUI and shell based access is flawed by not allowing the knowledgeable folks the short-cut access methods. It's not a well-stated argument, but you get my drift. [I'm sure this belongs elsewhere, I encourage follow-up to a more appropriate place, I don't know where...] Of course, this really brings up the point that a mouse may not be the best user-interface paradigm. It is the nuisance of switching one's mode of thinking from "typing" to "mousing" which is the biggest pain for me. That may in fact be true -- for the case of word-processing. There may indeed be something better, there may not be something more general. This is the difficulty I have found -- while there may be better specific solutions, better general solutions are not in the offing. At least not for the time being. So for the particular cases of navigation in WP's and navigation in file structures, there may be better specific solutions, but the more general solutions are not always intuitively obvious. I think, however, that as object-oriented systems and hypermedia come of age, we will see another giant leap in the "user-friendliness" of computers. These subjects have some very interesting diametrically opposite ways of viewing the world, as well as sharing some general concepts -- and that will have a very positive effect on the (relatively poor) state of our "user-friendly" systems. Time will tell, and I think I better let it before CSA folks start protesting. ;) AU/x, as I recall, is a pretty good demonstration of how a decent UI can get in the way of a powerful (if somewhat rotund) Operating System. No flames, please, that's just an opinion -- and not worth it's weight in salt. [If there is a more appropriate newsgroup, please tell me where, if there are only a few interested parties I'll conduct this through e-mail. Personally I feel if there's enough room to follow hardware-thread arguments, there's room for software ones too, but I am more than willing to censure myself according to the readership.] David Navas navas@cory.berkeley.edu Get -MB- off the net, elect him as our next Vice President. [It's a joke.]