Re: [9fans] User Interface

[John Murdie <john@cs.york.ac.uk>]

On 14 Aug, Eric de Redelijkheid wrote:
> In my opinion every task performed on a computer:
> - installation
> - administration
> - general use (word processing, spreadsheet, mail etc..)
> - programming
> should be done with the aid of a simple, intuitive,  point- and- click,
> graphical user interface.

I recall Brian Kernighan's statement along the lines of: ``The trouble
with WYSIWYG is that What You See Is All That You Get.''

I think that the term WYSIWYG is misused; as far as WYSIWYG goes, it's
fine - _of course_ I want my document preview to be printed as exactly
as I see it on the display - what people usually mean when they say
WYSIWYG is actually `direct manipulation' (Ben Schneiderman, 1983, I
think). This in turn usually means that all grammar more complicated
than `noun-verb' (perhaps modified with adjectives or arguments) has
been removed from the interface.

If you've ever seen, as I have, e.g. a Windows administrator creating
student accounts by printing out the E-mailed list which came from my
University's Administration, and then typing in each student's details
again, then pressing `Create account' and `Ok' buttons (or more!) for
each one, you'll know how bankrupt the idea of (only) direct
manipulation is. Even cutting and pasting by hand wouldn't have saved
them much time. (A Unix or Plan 9 user would pipe the E-mail through
(say) an awk script and finish the student account creation in a matter
of seconds, or minutes if the script didn't pre-exist.) Of course, this
is old hat to most people on this list.

As for intuitive, why, video recorders have exactly the kind of
interface that you describe. Why then are they so difficult to use?

(Ok, some might argue that this is off-topic, but I'd say that it is
connected with the why Plan 9 is as it is.)
-- 

John A. Murdie
Department of Computer Science
University of York
England