Richard G. Davis wrote:

>There is no one single model for human-computer interaction that will serve
>well within VistA as the only style in use.

"model" and "style" are very different concepts. One thing that seems very 
clear is that
the "dumb terminal" or CHUI mode of user interface is extremely limited in the 
models and
styles and the types of data that it can support. It has also become 
increasingly at odds
with the expectations and skills of new users.

>While the VistA 'conversational' style of human interaction is regarded as
>'inferior' or 'udesireable', these perspectives are ill-advised.  On the

I certainly did not mean to imply in my comments that a conversational style of 
user
interaction is bad. My point in the previous discussion is that it is hard to 
wrap up a
conversation in a simple GUI, at least working from the outside.


>contrary, the classical DHCP/VistA style of interaction is superior to any
>other style for many tasks.  Perhaps even a large majority of VistA tasks.

I don't believe that such an open-ended hypothesis can be proven conclusively, 
except
perhaps in the negative. I could probably still agree that a conversational 
style of
interaction (perhaps even terminal based) could be superior to some specific 
alternatives
in some contexts of tasks and users, but the alternatives are growing in number 
and
capability and the users are changing as well in the direction of demanding 
richer (and
simply different) user interfaces.

>The price of imposing GUI on existing VistA applications is prohibitive, and
>should only be considered when the benefits, in terms of real measureable
>criteria, far exceeds the costs of making the changes to VistA.

Some of the alternatives cost FAR less than others, particularly Open source 
and web based.

---------------------------------------
Jim Self
Systems Architect, Lead Developer
VMTH Computer Services, UC Davis
(http://www.vmth.ucdavis.edu/us/jaself)
---------------------------------------
M2Web Demonstration with VistA
(http://vista.vmth.ucdavis.edu/)
(http://openforum.worldvista.org/~forum/m.cgi)
---------------------------------------


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