adi (07/02/82)
Does anyone in the <net-land> have some experience or thoughts on
the question below ?
Given an intelligent terminal or local/personal computer
with graphics capability (including mouse and/or touchpad
devices), which of the following is a preferred way to put
an application together for a non-computer but technical
user ? (i.e. the user is a college graduate, perhaps in EE,
ME, or some other engineering or related field, but has had
very little contact with computers.)
1. A powerful command language ( a la Unix )
2. menu driven application - usually single letter or single
word responses required.
3. menu driven - menu consisting of graphics characters
4. menu driven, but allowing pointing to an entry by the
pointing device
5. Some other method (please explain)
If you have direct answers or some pointers to literature
(preferably making definite recommendations), please respond by
mail.
Please accept my thanks in anticipation.
A. D. Ingle
...!pyuxcc!adiZellich@OFFICE-3@sri-unix (07/08/82)
I definitely would \not/ go with a menu interface of any kind; even if it could be turned off when the user became familiar with the system. A "menu" that can be requested by the user at any time with a question-mark or some such, is a different thing entirely. Menus tend to be quite cumbersome when the system has been learned, and only get in the way of an experienced user; if turned off, then you end up with a user interface that is too different from what the user just learned, which isn't such a hot idea. I don't like the UNIX style of commands because of the mnemonic (or sometimes not so mnemonic! - but that doesn't have to be a problem with an interface you're designing yourself) rather than English commands. I \do/ like the pipes in UNIX, and would like to find some way of implementing them in a system that uses English command words with single-character-recognition/command-word-completion. A good example of the style of command interaction I think is good is the one used by Tymshare's Augment (or SRI Int'l or ISI's NLS). NLS (or Augment) is a difficult system to learn, but that's because of the new concepts required by using structured files, not because of the style of command interaction. It is a single-character- recognition/command-completion system, styled in a Verb-Noun pattern (using a mouse to point to objects on the crt). -Rich Zellich -------
Hamilton.ES@PARC-MAXC@sri-unix (07/08/82)
How about ALL of the above? Why restrict the user? In the Mesa Development Environment at Xerox, the best tools have all sorts of combinations of command-line interfaces, forms fill-ins, "helper" menus, programmatic interfaces, etc. True, you need to start with a few standards, since people move between workstations at times, but the ideal environment both permits the user to specify in his profile his preferred setup, and also leaves the option of using other interfaces at any time. --Bruce