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On Thu, 27 Oct 1994 jvncnet!ajc.com!mg@dowv wrote:

> Date	10/27/94
> Subject	Transparent interfaces
> From	Mike Gordon
> To	online news
> 
>   Transparent interfaces
> Paul K. Harral wrote:
> 
> >If she [a woman who cares only what computers do, not how] is our 
> >target in online newspapers, we better make sure that the content is
> >good and that the method of interface is transparant [sic]. Otherwise, 
> >she'd rather read the newspaper which she can do very quickly and 
> >efficiently. It is, after all, the end result of 400 years of technological> 
> >development and it does what it is designed to do very well.

I often help set up computers for completely inexperienced users.  There
is a simple rule of thumb.

	-More than three pages describing set-up and operation - engineer.
	-1 to 3 pages of setup - college graduate or hobbyist.
	-1 page smaller than 8" by 10", some college, computer user.
	-Instructions on disk label - High School graduate.
	-"Inset Disk, Run Setup" - High School Student, Non-technical.
	The assumption is that someone has taught them to run setup on
	MS-WINDOWS.  Everything else should be questions that they can
	understand with help at every prompt.  When they are done, it
	the interface should be like a video game.  They can become power
	users if they want, but they can do anything they want with a mouse.

Finally, they should be able to choose from several application/interfaces.
WWW is good that way because there are so many good "point and see"
interfaces includeing Mosaic, Winweb, and text-only versions for the user
with limited capability.

> Right you are! At a recent Poynter Institute conference on new media, Chuck
> Carter, the art director for Myst, called the audience's attention to a key
> fact about the user interface for the popular CD-ROM game: "It's invisible."
> No buttons, no scroll bars, no dialog boxes. While Myst and the morning news
> have all too little in common, the underlying truth remains: The more
> transparent the interface, the more brightly the content shines through.

Henry Ford said "Hire the smartest engineers to build a car so simple that
an idiot can use it".  He drew the line on a joystick operated car because
the brakes were engaged when you pushed forward (the forward momentum
would cause the brakes to be applied harder, quickly throwing the vehicle
into a skid).

On the other hand, we use a keyboard designed to make the operator as
inefficient as possible causeing as much carpel strain as possible,
because of mechanical limitations of a design that was obsolete 100 years
ago because "that's what everybody uses".  When August Dvorak came up with
a keyboard that didn't require typing school, the typing schools lobbied
used every tactic possible to discredit the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (DSK).
Now we see people wearing wrist straps and they HAVE to switch to DSK or
they will lose the ability to type permanently.

Unfortunately, the BEST interface is often the interface that has the most
clout.  Look at the real-estate take by MS-Windows and Motif compared to
Open-Look.  MS-Windows and Motif are designed to limit the number of
screens a user can have usable simultaneously, but it's "easier" to flip
through a dozen cascaded screens.



From rexb Tue Nov  8 17:03:34 1994