http://www.useit.com/alertbox/wysiwyg.html
excerpts:
Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, October 10, 2005:
R.I.P. WYSIWYG
Summary: Macintosh-style interaction design has reached its limits. A new
paradigm, called results-oriented UI, might well be the way to empower users in
the future.
...
Next Generation: Results-Oriented UI
The next version of Microsoft Office (code-named "Office 12") will be based on
a new interaction paradigm called the results-oriented user interface. As the
demos show, the most obvious departure from the past is that menus and toolbars
are all but wiped out. The focus is now on letting users specify the results
they want, rather than focusing on the primitive operations required to reach
their goals.
The new interface displays galleries of possible end-states, each of which
combine many formatting operations. From this gallery, you select the complete
look of your target -- say an org chart or an entire document -- and watch it
change shape as you mouse over the alternatives in the gallery. The
interaction paradigm has been reversed; it's now What You Get Is What You See,
or WYGIWYS.
...
If anybody else introduced a new user interface paradigm, it would probably
remain a curiosity for years, but Microsoft Office has a special status as the
world's most-used interaction design. We know from user testing that users
often demand that other user interfaces work like Office. When you're used to
one style most of the day, you want it in other applications and screens as
well.
If the new interaction style works as well as early predictions indicate, users
will quickly expect many other user experiences to provide the power of a
results-oriented design. People don't like messing with commands and
preference settings on the Web, which is why most customization features fail.
It'll therefore be interesting to see how these new ideas translate into
environments far beyond Office-like productivity applications.
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