In case that you don't know it yet, you absolutely have to review Humanized's Enso Launcher (www.*humanized*.com). It provides an interface similar to Quicksilver but based on principles developed by Jef Raskin (one of the original Mac designers) which are briefly explained in the Archy wikipedia page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy ).
Enso is an alternate approach to the same problem, allowing the flexibility and consistency of a CLI but with better learnability, feedback and GUI integration. The main benefit of the Unix CLI were that it allows for easy integration of small compontents, each one tailored to make well a single task. But GUIs, being compartmented in separate applications, often reinvent the wheel (i.e. how many different spell checkers do you have between your desktop, web apps & office suite? With a CLI you could have just one, and use it at every place where it is needed). People at Humanized write several blogs with many insights into these subjects. On 10/04/2008, Jeff Hendy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 2:02 PM, Jeff Garbers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > To me the interesting thing about Quicksilver is how it *combines* a > > keyboard-based interface with rich visuals in a really novel way. > > It's totally different from a traditional command line in how it > > provides visual feedback on matches and builds "commands" according to > > its own simple syntax as keys are pressed. > > > Interesting subject... this actually relates quite strongly to my > reasons for starting the "history of interaction" thread a couple days > ago. > > Inspired by Quicksilver and Don Norman's recent article on the > subject, I'm doing my masters research on ways to combine GUI/WIMP > interfaces with CLI-esque interaction to receive the benefits of both. > I'm in the very early phases of research, and what I'm doing right > now is trying to nail down exactly what the benefits of command lines > are, what was lost when GUIs took over, and how it the benefits can be > brought back. > > I made a prototype of such a thing, which basically ended up being > "ugly Quicksilver for Open Office", for a class project and got pretty > decent results from KLM-GOMS modelling as well as a real user > evaluation. Unfortunately, the code isn't anywhere near stable enough > to release, but there are some pictures and charts as well as a 20 > page paper for the truly brave here (no nasty comments on the web site > design please, I am absolutely not a web developer :) ) > > http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~jchendy/ate.htm > > > -Jeff > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
