Comments on: Usable Interface Design

By: JJ

JJ — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:31:35 +0000

A few years later, I have to add:

What you mention about functionalities instead of big applications if what the OpenDoc project from Apple (and its M$ rippoff OLE components) proposed: have the document the core piece of work and just complement it with any module you needed. You need a chart? use the charting module. You need to add a picture? use the photoshop'ish module, etc. Great idea I think. But complex to develop and probably not as profitable.

By: Information Architects » Blog Archive » Good books want to be re-read

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By: agustin

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By: Sandro

Sandro — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:30:10 +0000

One thing about the flying/zooming thing: Don’t you think that Apple with the Expose-thing is doing something like that? I think it’s quite the same idea, you fast zoom out, choose your “frame” and zoom in. Sorry for my bad english.

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 07:20:08 +0000

Tags. User defined tags. Meta data. Data about data. Thats all it would take. Basically the “core focus” of the systems we use is data. It’s something i think, none of the os’es have got right till now. I need some way to find, manipulate, share data – someway thats instinctive. Think about how we think and remember things. Do we have folders in our minds arranged in a heirachical order? I think not. Instead we use associative memory (sounds similar to the tagging concept?) where we remember data based on other data/memories/thoughts that have a related link/tag. And such a system is massively scalable. Any human mind has far, far more data that the largest computer memories available today. And we’re doing pretty good without windows/osx in our head. God forbid if our heads had them running :)_

By: Kilian

Kilian — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 08:34:27 +0000

I read a lot about Jef Raskins The Humane Interface and while I see some of his basic points, his approach to a solution I find lacking at best. I'm afraid Jef got too entrenched in his really very specific view on things that he became incapable of thinking out of his box. The whole thing with zooming is the worst idea ever. This takes far too long to get where you want to go, and moving around in your Data/Information is wasting more time than necessary. That's a highly unproductive way of looking for information.

I'd say take something like LaunchBar* and then you don't need the Finder (or any other Desktop/File Manager) anymore. You're one step closer where the OS as such more or less vanishes. You get away from organizing yourself and your files, moving towards doing and achieving things and simply getting work done.

*(although the talk of the day, free and providing for lots of eye candy I believe QuickSilver's usability to be quite inferior to LaunchBar in direct comparison simple and "no frills" LaunchBar shines)

By: metafile

metafile — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 10:00:38 +0000

Now you`re speaking not as a usability specialist, but as a dreaming it-related professional. :)

I mean, your dreams include a marketing (or what you call it?) contradiction: first, you suggest do not provide any colored glass (which is pretty good when you're interested in efficency), but then you say: everything must be updated, we can afford it. Yes, we can, but we don't need to (at least we are still alive without it). This is also can be told about the "no-more-long-startup" idea.

So, home users won`t buy a system without a glance, corporate people will hardly be happy to chose overkill systems.

As for separate functions, you're a little bit late :) Late for thirty years to be precise. What you're talking about is called "*nix-way" (well, one of the parts of it) and is widely used by corporations, almost never by custom users (although, I`m a linux user).

Also, a little remark on language (youve asked it yourself :)): afaik its incorrect to say "We don't need no programs", there can't be two negative statements in a sentence. It should sound like "We don't need any programs". Although, I'm not a native english speaker as well, so you should believe me a priori.

By: Steven Teskey

Steven Teskey — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 23:12:15 +0000

A very good read, I do have to agree with the thought of asthetics not being what drives the UI. Forcing the user to spend lots of money on new hardware just to see a “transparent window” is rediculous, they should spend their efforts trying to do something like the Symphony OS project, which is ridding us of the horrific nested folders.

By: Anatole

Anatole — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 00:20:02 +0000

Is this what you mean?

http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/multitouchreel.mp4