From: bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: More Defense of CLI (there, I changed the subject ... )
Date: 14 Oct 92 15:05:20 EDT
Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA

In article <1992Oct13.224704.1325@nwnexus.WA.COM>, kanefsky@halcyon.com (Steve Kanefsky) writes:
> In article <1992Oct13.202113.23250@gvl.unisys.com> dave@prc.unisys.com (David Lee Matuszek) writes:
>>In article <6203.2adadad3@hayes.com> bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:
>>>In article <1992Oct12.221502.12684@nwnexus.WA.COM>, kanefsky@halcyon.com (Steve Kanefsky) writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>With the mouse, you have to think of where the menu is, then you REACH OUT
>>>>>AND GRAB IT. There's almost no cognitive load.
>>>> 
>>>> This is utter nonsense.  
>>>
>>>It is not.
>>>
>>>> They keyboard is, in fact, easier to reach out
>>>> and grab than a menu on the screen, because you are literally
>>>> reaching out and grabbing it, rather than going through the mouse 
>>>
>>>Not true.
>>>
>>>A two-year old can use a mouse. You don't need to even spell or understand
>>>what letters are to use a mouse. All you have to do is move it like you move
>>>it on the screen. Simple.
>>
>>I'd like to add my $0.02 here, before people start protesting that
>>they're not two years old any more.
>>
>>The point isn't that a two-year old can use a mouse.  The point is
>>that things people learn early in life are more deep-seated and
>>fundamental, and require less higher-level intellectual activity.
> 
> That doesn't necessarily matter.  Just because a two-year old can do
> task A but not task B doesn't mean that an adult can't do task B more
> efficiently than task A.  Otherwise we'd all be crawling everywhere we
> go instead of walking, running, driving, flying airplanes, etc.

(Sigh)

You carefully avoided David's point, didn't you? While you are not
two years old anymore, and you've certainly added skills since you were
two, the things that are easy for you at two are certainly still easy
for you as an adult.

And we're not talking about some ad hominem task A and task B, we're talking
about the specific case of using a Mouse (or other pointing device) versus
using a keyboard. 

>>You can use a mouse literally without thinking about it.  On occasion,
>>working with someone else at their terminal, I have been momentarily
>>frustrated because I couldn't get to the mouse to point at something
>>on the screen, only to realize I could use a finger for this purpose.
>>(Admittedly, I'm highly practiced with the mouse.)
> 
> I still claim that using the mouse needs to be taught.  

And the keyboard requires no training at all?

> Having to pick up the mouse and move it back onto the pad is decidedly 
> *non* intuitive to many people.  

While it may be non intuitive, do you have to show people over and over?
I submit that you probably only have to show somebody this ONCE, and they
will know they can do it. Proficiency at any skill comes with practice.

> On the other hand, even rats can be taught to press a particular key.  

The issue isn't pressing a key. The issue is using a keyboard. Surely you're
not suggesting that rats have been taught to use a keyboard?

> I also sincerely doubt that a two-year old could be taught to understand 
> a standard file dialog box.  

There's a video tape of an Apple engineer's 1 1/2 year old daughter using
a Mac. I knew a consultant whose 4 and 6 year old children could use his
Mac. Note that these children haven't even gotten to the age where they
could nominally read, much less spell out commands on a keyboard interface.

> My pioint is that you're comparing apple's and oranges.  

You, sir, are confusing the apple's and lemons, here.

> Many of the things a two-year old can be taught to use the mouse for 
> could also be done with just a single keypress. The more complex things 
> you can do in a GUI still require language and higher cognitive processes.  

A two-year old can be taught to use KIDPIX for drawing pictures. With
the mouse.

Are you suggesting that this can be done with a single keypress? If so,
you are grossly mistaken.

Using a visual interface requires no language or higher cognitive processes.
Children who can't read, spell and barely speak can use a visual interface
quite easily.

>>Learning the alphabet, learning to read, and learning to use a
>>keyboard are all HARD, and involve intense mental effort.  It may not
>>seem that way now, since you learned these things so long ago, but it
>>was a lot of work at the time.  Today the intellectual activity is
>>unconscious, or nearly so, but it's still substantial compared with
>>the effort of grabbing a physical object (the mouse) and waving it
>>around.
> 
> Actually it's very hard to grab a physical object.  Ask a robot.  

Humans aren't robots. Or have you been using command line interfaces so
long you have forgotten this.

> Your own argument applies here.  You learn it so early you don't realize it's
> hard.  

Good point. Perhaps its easier because we've had more time to build proficiency.
That still means it is easier, regardless of the reason.

>>Humans have a surprisingly limited "mental bandwidth."  
>>Citing a variety of experiments, he showed how even trivial
>>tasks took mental processing power away from other, concurrent tasks;
>>a lot of work has been done since on "cognitive load."  
> 
> Well, I'm sure you're aware how oversimplified this is.  The mind has
> the ability to process lots of things in parallel.  There are some areas
> that can get overloaded, but you can do two or more non-conflicting
> tasks at the same time.  

Exactly. I can mouse around on the screen while thinking about what I'm going
to write next. I can even do it while I'm talking on the telephone.

> I can type or talk at the same time I'm thinking up what to type or say 
> next.  

Don't call me when I'm typing in news replies. I can't type and talk at the
same time. Doing so overloads my semantic capabilities.

I've known people who appear to be able to read, talk on the phone and
watch TV at the same time. They don't appear to do any of these things
very well. I can't. Perhaps if I practiced more, I could....

> What that says to me is that humans have a substantial
> capacity for processing verbal and even written language.  

True. But we have an easier time just interacting with the real world. It
takes substantially less brainpower to reach out and pick up your coffee
cup than it does to describe the action to someone else.

> Otherwise we'd all be using sign language.  

On anthropological (I hope I spelled that correctly) theory is that sign
language was one of the first forms of communication in human culture. 
Even today, we use sign language extensively, even if we aren't aware of
it. (ref. any of one of the recent books on body language.

> We have CLI's because there's just some things that are easier to say 
> with words than with gestures.

Words work better for expressing ideas. Unfortunately, computers have no
capacity to understand ideas. So using words to communicate with computers
conveys no advantage.

-- 
Bill Coleman, AA4LR                ! CIS: 76067,2327    AppleLink: D1958
Principal Software Engineer        ! Packet Radio: AA4LR @ W4QO
Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc. ! UUCP: uunet!hayes!bcoleman
POB 105203 Atlanta, GA 30348 USA   ! Internet: bcoleman%hayes@uunet.uu.net
Disclaimer: "My employer doesn't pay me to have opinions."
Quote: "The same light shines on vineyards that makes deserts." -Steve Hackett.