Comments on: The desktop metaphor is, like, so five minutes ago

By: Animesh अनिमेष

Animesh अनिमेष — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 14:42:00 +0000

While the interfaces in the games like Mario seem more intuitive than the traditional desktop metaphor, such interfaces may not be suitable for long term and high productivity use.
Game Interfaces have extremely short learning time, because they try to mimic real life. But low productivity.
Desktop Interfaces have longer learning time than the game interfaces, but provide higher productivity.
But it would be very interesting to discuss how game-like interfaces would offer a better experience at museums and other kiosks.

By: Leo Ferguson

Leo Ferguson — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:37:35 +0000

Very insightful all around. I think that the problem is, Apple, in the absence of any real interface design competition, has largely given up on trying to make OS X easy to use. “Easy to use” was once the watchword at Apple but it has become so easy to compete with Microsoft on that score that saying you’re better than Windows is like saying you’re a better President than Bush. It’s a pretty low bar.

While Apple pioneered the intuitive GUI and followed with elegant, clever industrial design, the Mac OS these days is a mess. Feature rich and certainly better than Windows, but altogether confusing, inconsistent, mired in (as Ethan pointed out) outdated metaphors and often arbitrary.

Hence the acronym: Fix the Fucking Finder.

By: J. Powers

J. Powers — Sat, 30 May 2009 12:28:31 +0000

See if your local library has a copy of David Kolb’s _Sprawling Places_. While the book itself is pretty interesting critique (and defense!) of suburbia, the relevant bit for your thinking is his concept of a “place grammar.” The book started as a website, so there’s the hypertext version at:

http://www.dkolb.org/sprawlingplaces/generalo/placegra.html

Cyberspace is a “place” because the kind of rules of engagement that govern its use (read: user interface) closely resemble the kind of rules of engagement that govern our behavior in places. We have different behavioral expectations and standards for different places, which is one of the key ways we experience them as different in the first place.

Oh, and my dissertation is more or less about metaphor and place. (My context is architecture rather than IT, but a lot translates, I think…)

By: Ethan

Ethan — Sun, 24 May 2009 15:48:25 +0000

My mom loves the iPhone too. It’s literally the first piece of technology she’s ever enjoyed using. It’s like, now she gets what all the geeky fuss is about. I’m intrigued by the idea of kids having the computer itself be part of their core set of intuitive mental images.

By: JMP

JMP — Sun, 24 May 2009 14:27:05 +0000

They’re also going to start dealing with a generation that thinks of computer interfaces as their own metaphor, not an adaptation of non-computer metaphors. My three year old is extremely comfortable with the iPhone interface, finding it very intuitive. (OTOH, my mother, in her mid-60s, also finds the iPhone interface relatively intuitive.)
-JMP

By: Ethan

Ethan — Sun, 24 May 2009 14:18:26 +0000

Since Apple did such a nice job for the most part on their version of the desktop UI, I have no doubt that their spin on what comes next will be elegant as well. It does certainly seem like they’re on the verge of something with the gestural iPhone controls. I read that they’re doing a full-size tablet PC, I’ll be eager to see how that thing works.

By: JMP

JMP — Sun, 24 May 2009 10:37:07 +0000

Ethan, your description of the level browser in Mario 64 is not that different from the Cover Flow interface that Apple has. It’s most commonly seen in iTunes, and on the iPhone/iPod Touch, and allows people to browse their music collection by flipping through album covers. In fact, in an era in which more and more music is downloaded, that interface suddenly makes album art relevant again.

As with most good things that Apple comes up with for the iLife programs, Cover Flow is available as a type of image browser in the Cocoa API, so anyone developing a program for a Mac who wants a way to browse images (with the option of selecting them) can make use of this interface. Of course, there aren’t a huge number of situations that obviously lend themselves to its use, but it’s a tool that’s there for developers to use…
-JMP