Interesting piece on GUIs
Jun. 24th, 2007 07:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lproven The LisaBar - or - Why Apple got it right.
Also see the discussion of the piece on OSnews.
As I commented there:
Interesting piece but it feels incomplete.
I have several reservations, though.
[1] How come you talk of the Lisa interface but illustrate it - and mainly seem to discuss - the Mac interface? They're not the same. They're not even that similar. The Mac is application-based and driven.
[2] I disagree that the Mac is MDI of any kind. It is SDI, pretty much, with a unified menu bar.
[3] Fitt's law is very widely taken as some kind of axiom or biblical pronouncement; you are not the first. It's not; it merely reflects a certain type of bias. For instance, there is a simple, obvious menu placement method which is more efficient than Fitt's edge-of-the-screen-as-biggest-target rule. That is, the context menu. Look at old Unix systems - back in the days of OpenLook and so on. More saliently, before commenting on such things, I feel that you really need to play with one of the first mass-market WIMP GUIs that was truly multitasking: Acorn's RISC OS. It's still being developed and sold. It refines the Unix-style 3-button mouse paradigm into near perfection; there are no fixed menu bars anywhere, and no need for clumsy kludges like mice with scroll wheels, "OK" and "Apply" buttons and so on. It has problems, sure, but it is, in its way, considerably more elegant than either Classic MacOS or Mac OS X. Anyone criticizing WIMPs *needs* to get to know RISC OS. (I would count Atari GEM and Amiga Intuition, but I don't think either of them brought anything genuinely new to the table. The Amiga's top-of-the-screen global menu /that you must summon with the right mouse button/ is, to my mind, a particular ergonomic horror.)
The most efficient menu position is the one where you *do not need to move the mouse at all.*
Secondly, this removes one of the Mac's nasty little niggles, which OS X preserves: that of the menu bar that randomly changes on the user depending on which window they clicked on last. This always throws beginners and can fox experts too; we all make mistakes.
Thirdly, by having no menu displayed at all unless you ask for it, no screen space is wasted. You only get a menu when you need a menu, and because you asked for it, by clicking the menu button over a window, you know what menu you're going to get.
It's far simpler and more elegant than the Apple way. Yes, a 3 button mouse takes more learning, but not much. The ideal GUI, I think, is perhaps one which has a simple one-button model for beginners which gradually shifts to a more powerful multi-button one as the user grows more proficient, banishing fixed menu bars on the way. The only tricky bit - and it's a doozy - is working out how to manage the transition.
Also see the discussion of the piece on OSnews.
As I commented there:
Interesting piece but it feels incomplete.
I have several reservations, though.
[1] How come you talk of the Lisa interface but illustrate it - and mainly seem to discuss - the Mac interface? They're not the same. They're not even that similar. The Mac is application-based and driven.
[2] I disagree that the Mac is MDI of any kind. It is SDI, pretty much, with a unified menu bar.
[3] Fitt's law is very widely taken as some kind of axiom or biblical pronouncement; you are not the first. It's not; it merely reflects a certain type of bias. For instance, there is a simple, obvious menu placement method which is more efficient than Fitt's edge-of-the-screen-as-biggest-target rule. That is, the context menu. Look at old Unix systems - back in the days of OpenLook and so on. More saliently, before commenting on such things, I feel that you really need to play with one of the first mass-market WIMP GUIs that was truly multitasking: Acorn's RISC OS. It's still being developed and sold. It refines the Unix-style 3-button mouse paradigm into near perfection; there are no fixed menu bars anywhere, and no need for clumsy kludges like mice with scroll wheels, "OK" and "Apply" buttons and so on. It has problems, sure, but it is, in its way, considerably more elegant than either Classic MacOS or Mac OS X. Anyone criticizing WIMPs *needs* to get to know RISC OS. (I would count Atari GEM and Amiga Intuition, but I don't think either of them brought anything genuinely new to the table. The Amiga's top-of-the-screen global menu /that you must summon with the right mouse button/ is, to my mind, a particular ergonomic horror.)
The most efficient menu position is the one where you *do not need to move the mouse at all.*
Secondly, this removes one of the Mac's nasty little niggles, which OS X preserves: that of the menu bar that randomly changes on the user depending on which window they clicked on last. This always throws beginners and can fox experts too; we all make mistakes.
Thirdly, by having no menu displayed at all unless you ask for it, no screen space is wasted. You only get a menu when you need a menu, and because you asked for it, by clicking the menu button over a window, you know what menu you're going to get.
It's far simpler and more elegant than the Apple way. Yes, a 3 button mouse takes more learning, but not much. The ideal GUI, I think, is perhaps one which has a simple one-button model for beginners which gradually shifts to a more powerful multi-button one as the user grows more proficient, banishing fixed menu bars on the way. The only tricky bit - and it's a doozy - is working out how to manage the transition.
