greenberg@calgary.UUCP (Saul Greenberg) (12/05/87)
I am soliciting your thoughts/experiences/anecdotes on direct manipulation interfaces, particularly those features that fail and/or don't provide the ease of use expected. To avoid net congestion, please send your replies directly to me. I will post a digest of selected replies within the next month or two. (I will be using this information as part of a talk and paper entitled "The trouble with direct manipulation") Just to set the scene, here are two examples: The traditional hierarchical directory/file systems are represented iconically as folders/applications/documents in the Macintosh finder. When a document is accessed deep in the hierarchy, many folders must be opened. The problems are: o all the open folders clutter the screen o closing non-essential folders (usually all but the last) is painful and involves unnecessary decision time. Windows on the Macintosh can be considered direct manipulation: they have special controls allowing them to be moved, reshaped, closed, and so on instead of the traditional pop-up menu seen in most other systems. The problem arises when one wishes to raise a window that is completely buried under another one. The window on top must be altered (moved, closed, or reshaped). to bring the one underneath in view. The criticisms here are: o more than one operation is required to do a simple act o altering of the top window means that the user may have to restore it to its original position/size later. Please send replies directly to me. In case the address doesn't come through, its: UUCP: ...!ihnp4!alberta!calgary!greenberg Saul Greenberg Dept of Computer Science University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4 CANADA (403) 220-7140