User:Natasa Siencnik/notes/gentner/

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Abstract

Don Gentner / Jakob Nielson: The Anti-Mac Interface. In: Communications of the ACM. August 1996, Vol. 39, N°8.

Introduction

  1. Alternative Interfaces
    • human interface is stuck, very little innovation in interface design anymore
    • user has settled on the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointer) model
    • violating basic assumptions as useful mental exercise to find new concepts
    • article explores possible types of interfaces that could result in such a violation
    • focus on Macintosh interface as prime example of current interface paradigm
  2. Macintosh Design
    • designed for naive users without any previous computer experience
    • targeted at a narrow range of applications (office work, entertainment, multimedia)
    • weak computational resouces (computer with 128KB RAM, 400KB storage device, printer)
    • supported by poor communication channels (screen, keyboard, mouse)

Human Interface Design Principles

  • based on fundamental principles of human-computer interaction
  • how do these principles limit the computer-human interface?
  1. Metaphors from familiar noncomputer world
    • computer files represented as documents in paper folders placed on desktop
    • files deleted by dragging them to the trash can
    • trying to overcome the limitations of the desktop metaphor (rooms, buildings, village)
    • automobiles have developed their own interfaces without metaphors based on horses
  2. Problems with Metaphors
    • target domain has features not in the source domain (e.g. replace command in text editor)
    • source domain has features not in the target domain (e.g. marking of typewriters)
    • some features exist in both domains but work differently (e.g. white space as character)
  3. Trash Can Metaphor
    • single-trash-can metaphor has led to asystem that fails to meet user's needs
    • to avoid the confusion of multiple trash cans in the interface, all trash cans are combined
    • when user empties the trash to create room on a floppy disk, both trashe cans are deleted
    • this is a limitation that does not serve the user's real needs
  4. Desktop Metaphor
    • save training time by taking advantage of having learned to operate a traditional office
    • next generation of users will make their learning investments with computers
  5. Direct Manipulation
    • users interact directly with objects in the interface (e.g. drag and drop a document)
    • user cannot group a related series of basic actions into one high-level action
  6. See-and-Point
    • users interact with computer by pointing at the objects they see on the screen
    • we have lost all power of language, and cannot talk about objects that are not visible (yet)
    • utilize more of the power of language to communicate more prececly
  7. Consistency
    • difficult to aply in real situation with wide array of conflicting things
    • learning will be reduced if objects with similar function always look / behave alike
    • in real life we have a wide range of appearances and they can still be easily recognizable
  8. WYSIWYG
    • what you see is what you get > document on the screen will look the same when printed
    • problem that it is usually equivalent to WYSIATI (what you see is all there is)
    • WYSIWYG document only shows final printed representation, not the user's intentions
    • Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) preserves semantic meaning
    • might be useful to have a different representation whe npreparing the document
    • electronic information should be modularized and enabled to link to backup information
  9. User Control
    • many situations where we do not want to be in control > delegate to machines
    • even if control is desirable, full control is becoming impossible with networked computers
  10. Feedbakc and Dialog
    • computer interface should provide the user with clear and immediate feedback on actions
    • delegation of sequence of activities to an agent or encapsulated in a script
    • then tehre is no longer a need for detailed and continuous feedback
  11. Forgiveness
    • user actions should generally be reversible and users should be warned of data loss
    • computer needs to build a deeper model of our intentions and history
  12. Perceived Stability
    • elements in the computer interface should not be changed without user's involvement
    • but deviding control between the user and the computer or networked computers
    • stability can be boring
  13. Aesthetic Integrity
    • graphic design of the interface should be simple, clean, and consistent
    • if compters could communicate with richer langugage, look would be less important
    • richness can increase usability by making it easier to distinguish
  14. Modelessness
    • computer interface should not have distinct modes that restrict the user's actions
    • users should be able to perform any task at any time
    • problem of modelessness > user cannot cope with everything at once

Anti-Mac Interface

  1. Central Role of Language
    • language lets us refer to things not immediately present, potential actions
    • encapsulate complex groups of objects or actions and refer to them with single name
    • ability to deal with imprecise language will increase the computer's flexibility
    • command line interfaces have some of the advantages of language
    • command line interfaces have rich syntactic structure to form complex commands
    • but only a limited number of commands and cannot tolerate synonyms, misspellings
  2. Richer Internal Representation of Objects
    • current interfaces have acces to very little information about the used objects
    • the only information about a file may be its name, size, and modification date,
    • the type of data it contains, and the application that created it
    • but it could include its authors, topic matter, keyword, importance, relations
  3. More Expressive Interface
    • richer internal representation of objects will allow more intelligent interpretation
    • but it will also be reflected in a more expressive interface with external representation
  1. Expert Users
  2. Shared Control