[ge-talk] glasselevator: User Interface

[Michael Phipps]

I always laugh a little when people take linux, change some small thing 
(package managers, desktop app) and call it an OS. Sort of like saying "I 
took a Ford Taurus, put in leather seats and a spoiler and now it is a 
Symphony car!".

What is this, really? AFAICT, A semi-transparent (and some of the osdir 
screenshots show how unclear and unappealing that can be!) set of menus on 
the desktop. Putting some commonly used icons in the corners.

I have some very mixed feelings about this.

One of the things that Fitt's Law doesn't take into account is the ever 
increasing size of the monitor. On a 320x200 screen, it is always easy to 
get to a corner. On a 1600 X 1200 monitor, corners are no longer the vastly 
desirable real estate that they once were.

As far as the "simplify the desktop by only putting stuff on there that you 
need", that is a user choice. My desktop tends to be empty. Other people 
can choose that route if they want, as well. The problem is that people 
want a "working space" - a place where they can get to quickly for the 
current batch of "stuff" that they are working on. Mezzo, apparently, tries 
to solve this with the dock, as Apple does.

I cringe when I see people's desktops with 100 icons on them. Part of the 
fault is, IMHO, the poor organization of the single "begin" menu (start, Be 
menu, whatever). Think about it - if someone follows the Windows standard 
(company name / product name / application), it takes:

move to bottom left corner
click
move to all programs
wait (or click)
move to company name
wait (or click)
move to application name
wait (or click)
move to application
click

I always reorganize to be more like what BeOS Max does - categories like 
internet, office, etc.
Then you get:

move to bottom left corner
click
move to all programs
wait (or click)
move to category
wait (or click)
move to application
click

4 vs 5 and category is more logical, to me, than company. All Programs is 
only necessary because the company first level is so poor. In BeOS, I use

move to top right corner
click
move to category
wait (or click)
move to app
click

Which is more reasonable. Tying into our other conversation, I really like:

move to category on dock
click
move to app
click

I used this interface for a couple of years and really liked it. It does 
take some getting used to (people used to pick on me about my "Star Wars" 
desktop), but within an hour or so I was far more productive with that 
interface than with a start menu.

Michael

Peter Ostrander wrote:
> A rather intruiging interface design is being done at the Mezzo project.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezzo_(desktop_environment)
> 
> http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/955
> 
> I like the ideas on the desktop.  It does away with the windows feel that is common to a lot of guis, though it seems that be and mac have been spared mostly of this problem.  Still though, this is a very easy way to present way to the end user.  I don't like how this concept seems to dumb down the computer.  However in many cases, I praise any gui that dumbs things down as I hate doing tech support for people that haven't a clue how to use a mouse.
>