From: johnm@cajal.uoregon.edu (John Martin)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x,comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Keywords: n
Date: 21 Aug 92 18:25:48 GMT
Organization: Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon

In article <1992Aug20.181915.2357@twg.com>, "David Herron" <david@twg.com> writes:

>
>GUI's are (potentially anyway) a vast improvement over CLI driven software.

For some applications, I agree. GUIs are like anything else -- they have
their place. Unfortunately, nobody seems to have figured out how to do
them right :-)

>It requires less cognitive space/effort for a user to navigate through the
>options in a window'd interface than it does to navigate a CLI'd (or even
>CURSES) driven interface.  This is because there is constantly a representation
>on the screen of the current status, while in the CLI model (and to a lesser
>extent the CURSES model) the user must be able to visualize a lot of things.

I disagree.  The user must visualize *different* concepts using a GUI as 
opposed to a CLI, but the amount of brain power is the same, IMHO. Of course
both the person who uses the CLI and the person who uses the GUI will reach
a point where their respective procedures are second nature, and therefore
invisible to them.

For kicks sometime, take a person who is used to a CLI and put them on a Mac.
I guarantee that they will not be able to do *anything* useful until they have
either read the manual or experimented a lot.

>To a computer expert (I've been programming for 19.5 years now) this 
>visualization is second nature.  In order to design/write/debug software
>we must be able to visualize computer processes.  Most people do not have
>that sort of background and thus have a hard time with it.

Too true...

>In any case ... with a keyboard interface the user generally must
>remember all the options, and getting them wrong means retyping.

How does this differ from GUIs? You still need to remember how all of these
little pictures can interact -- something that I personally have a bit of
difficulty doing.  I sometimes get them wrong, which means starting over.

>Say you are writing an e-mail user interface..  how do you select
>recipients to a message which is being composed?  With a window'd
>interface the program could include an address book where the user
>keeps names & addresses of people s/he communicates with.  The computer
>remembers the spelling of everything, reducing errors from transcription
>etc etc.  Fewer errors means it is more likely the job will be done
>right the first time, meaning fewer times when a message will have
>to be re-addressed and re-sent.

Bad example. An e-mail interface, IMHO, is one of the tasks that does not
lend itself well to GUIfying. Picking things from lists, and automating
data-entry is not a function only GUIs can do! A CLI can provide the
functionality you describe just as easily.

>With a CLI (curses) interfact, there generally is not enough bandwidth
>between application & screen & user to present the address book as
>a scrolled list.  So usually the user must type things by hand, etc,
>leading towards more errors, and so on.

But there are *other* ways of presenting the data that are more effective!
Aside from that, an e-mail interface is rather simple, so there really is
no need to hang a bunch of pretties on the from end. I think alias lists
and the "reply" command serve their purposes rather well. When I send e-mail
to a colleague in Germany, I don't have to remember his address, let alone
spell it; I just use his name! The program looks in the alias list for the
address. Is this error-prone?  If a stranger e-mails me, I just save the
letter until I have time to reply, then use the mail programs "reply"
command -- I never even have to look at his address!


-- 
John Martin                                        johnm@cajal.uoregon.edu
Institute of Neuroscience,   University of Oregon,    Eugene, OR,    97402
Newsgroups: alt.religion.emacs