::scr Drooling GUI

[alorenz]

>apprently there were, err, issues with mailman this morning.

oh, good. =)
(I was afraid it was all over ... I'm new here, hi.)

David Cantrell said:
>> > No, no, a thousand times no.  A computer is a tool.  I see no problem with
>> > people having to learn and understand their tools before use.  You
>>wouldn't
>> > expect anyone to be able to pick up a multimeter and debug the wiring in
>> > your flat, or a stethoscope to debug your heart, so why on earth
>>should the
>> > tool that sits on your desk be different?
>>
>> But a computer is supposed to be an abstraction tool. They're supposed
>> to be getting easier.
>
> [...] I'm not really sure what an "abstraction tool" is :-)

oh, things like "find" and "sort" and "delete" are "abstraction tools" I
would say - abstraction from both the real-world way of handling things and
the way a computer handles "things". how often have you found yourself
wishing there was a "find" command in real life when you spent hours
looking for that bill you absolutely definitely need to pay now?

no, but seriously, that's something I've often thought about - I'm an
"average user", more or less - if you look at the interface as tool, does
the current way of representing things as documents in folders really make
sense? or will one day someone come and proove that windows and menus and
folders are wrong, in the way the aristotelian model of the universe was
wrong?

someone came up with "customized" interfaces for different user groups
yesterday, modelled on what's familiar in their real-world surroundings ...
well, I'm a designer, but no I don't want a "design-studio-interface"
please. I don't even want to imagine how that would look. and it's really
unnecessary I think - even new users are perfectly aware that a document on
the screen has nothing to do with a real document, even though they may not
be aware *that* they're aware of it. this is something a good interface
could exploit, I think, but how?

I've been on a mac for almost ten years now, and - perhaps unsurprisingly -
I'm finding it quite hard to imagine any fundamentally different way how
"the computer" could look (apart from command-line interfaces) - so, when
you said

> Again, why try to dress the computer up as something it isn't?

what did you have in mind? command lines or still something else? if you
could wipe out history and re-design an interface from scratch (resp.
"dress up the computer as something it *is*"), what would you do?


just curious,


angela


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