kempf@tci.UUCP (Cory Kempf) (06/16/89)
In article <32466@apple.Apple.COM> malcolm@Apple.COM (Malcolm Slaney) writes: >There are really three issues here. The first is whether serious intellectual >effort goes into designing a user interface. I know that I am going to regret this... I am a software engineer. My area of specialty, to the extent that I have one, is in graphical user interface. Specifically, I design interfaces for applications. I spend a lot of time on the more complex interfaces. Much of this time is spent in trying to figure out how to present the information to a user and get information back from the user in a manner that is as painless as possible. (painless means not spending hours reading the manual as well as not being slowed by a 'user-stupid' interface (user- stupid means that it assumes that the user is an idiot that can't learn)) My goal in making a user interface is to make it easy for a novice user to use the product, as well as make it a non-frustrating experience for an expert. Additionally, I strive to make manuals obsolete... I feel that the computer should do the work. Once I have designed the user interface, it is there for anyone to see. To duplicate it would not require the time and creativity that I put into it. If someone should come along later and make a new implimentation of my user interface on a competing product, that person could sell his product for a lot less that I could. This could cause my company to go out of business. If this process were caried out, the net result would be that I couldn't make a living designing better user-interfaces because no company would hire me. They wouldn't hire me because they couldn't make money from my work. The result is that we will have computers that are more and more powerfull, and we will be spending more and more time reading manuals and less and less time doing productive work. For the vast majority of apple's GUI, I can/have come up with alternative methods/metaphors. It does take some thought, but it can be done. (cf NeXT). Personally, I have mixed feelings about Apple's suit against Microsoft... I have used MS Presentation Manager... There is a lot of similarity between the two. Enough that I can see how Apple could consider PM to be an infringement. On the otherhand, I think that there should be a limit of on the order of 5 years for GUI's. +C -- Cory Kempf Technology Concepts 40 Tall Pine Dr. uucp: {anywhere}!uunet!tci!kempf, kempf@tci.uu.net Sudbury MA 01776 phone: (508) 443-7311 x341 DISCLAIMER: TCI is not responsible for my opinions, nor I for theirs