On Jul 8, 2004, at 12:27 PM, The Fool wrote:
An example of good UI is the Macintosh designers' decision to put the menubar at the top of the screen, not the top of a window, making it MUCH easier to hit. Because it's at an edge, there's no chance of overshooting it and having to backtrack. It effectively makes the target infinitely tall -- instead of having to try to decelerate and land the pointer in a 20-some pixel-high strip near the top of a window, you can just slam the pointer up against the top of the screen and it automatically stops there.
Most people learn how to control their mouse..
Most people's goal in using a computer is not to learn how to control
their mouse, but to get their work done. This is done better on a system
that doesn't force one to engage in target practice. I suppose if one had
to, one could hit a single pixel in the middle of an otherwise featureless
screen. In fact, that's pretty much what graphic artists do pretty much
all day.
Come to think of it, I suppose one could learn to hit that single pixel
while using one's nose to control a mouse taped to the end of a yardstick
while standing on his or her hands. But would that constitute good UI?
Your reply reminds me of a joke: two recent college grads are in a restroom. After using the urinal, one heads to the sink while the other goes towards the door. The former says, "At Harvard, they taught us to wash our hands after we use the toilet." To which the other replies, "Well, at Yale, they taught us not to piss on our fingers."
In another message, The Fool mentioned Windows' consistent control-key
shortcuts. That was borrowed from the Macintosh Human Interface
Guidelines. And they got it wrong, too: the control key is often
located where it must be pressed with the *side* of the little finger,
where the Apple command-key is always located on either side of the
space bar, where it is operated by the thumb. This may seem like a
small thing, but I broke my little finger last year, and found that it
was constantly sore when using windows, but was able to heal when using
the Mac.
Wouldn't that be the designer of the keyboard that IBM originally used?
The Key shortcuts I mentioned have been around since ye olde days of MS-DOS.
Which doesn't make them good, only consistent with an old HCI design. Would you prefer a controlling your computer with a mule, a rope, and a whip? That's been around since the dark ages.
I'm really not trying to make this a Win v. Mac thing, but I find that Linux (and Solaris and other Un*x flavors) tend to follow Windows UI rules, and I just can't find other examples of *computer* user interfaces that are anything like the Mac in terms of ease of use.
Like having only _*ONE*_ godd_a_m_ned mouse button? Or requiring the OS
to eject floppy disks (and keeping files on the floppy disks open instead
of closing them). Or Not having function keys? (Even the s_h_i_t_y
mainframe terminals have function keys).
I have no idea what God's opinion of the single Mac mouse button is. I do
know that it was a Steve Jobs demand that many avid Mac users still decry.
The Mac had and has its share of annoyances, just far fewer than Windows.
So much so that there's a web site "www.annoyances.org" and a whole series
of O'Reilly books based on how annoying Windows is.
Admittedly, function keys were a late arrival on the Mac, first appearing
on the "Apple Extended Keyboard," code-named "Saratoga," in the mid-90s.
Then again, no Mac programs /required/ function-keys. They weren't missing,
they were simply unnecessary.
Dave
_______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
