From: johnsd2@lib110.its.rpi.edu (Daniel Norman Johnson)
Subject: Re: More Defense of CLI (there, I changed the subject ... )
Reply-To: johnsd2@rpi.edu
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 1992 00:04:10 GMT

In article <strobl.719276227@gmd.de>, strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) writes:
|> In <_!2zygn@rpi.edu> johnsd2@jec325.its.rpi.edu (Daniel Norman Johnson) writes:
|> 
|> >In article <strobl.719069866@gmd.de>, strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) writes:
|> >|> In <1992Oct13.202113.23250@gvl.unisys.com> dave@prc.unisys.com (David Lee Matuszek) writes:
|> >|> 
|> >|> [...]
|> >|> 
|> [...]
|> >|> The question isn't whether you - after a lot of training - can
|> >|> use a mouse without thinking about it. The question we where
|> >|> discussing is whether people can use a keyboard in a similar
|> >|> way or not.
|> 
|> >You mean, point at things with it? Sounds tricky... :)
|> 
|> Actually, it works just as well as by pointing the mouse  
|> at the screen. At least if you computer happens to have
|> a touch-sensitive screen. 8-)

Heh Heh.... :)  [hmmm... my face seems to me smaller    :)
than yours. Perhaps I need a facelift...................][

|> >|> My position is that I know that I can, and that
|> >|> I'm not the only one with that capability.
|> 
|> >Indeed. Took me a lot longer to learn to type than to learn to
|> >mouse. Do you mean to imply that the reverse was true for you?
|> 
|> Hard to say, because I learned to type before I learned
|> to use the mouse.

Me too. How does that make it hard?

|> But I watched my two childs how they learned to use the mouse and
|> the keyboard. I didn't use a stopwatch, but simply noticed 
|> which errors they made and how they used these input devices.
|> 
|> I got the impression that using the keyboard for certain
|> simple task wasn't much different from using the mouse, 
|> and that the time to learn how to use the keyboard wasn't
|> longer than using the mouse. In certain cases, I noticed
|> that without further instruction and training, a child may 
|> have more difficulties to perform an action with the
|> mouse than with the keyboard, even in areas where 
|> using the mouse is advocated here.
|> 
|> An example: moving the selection point to a certain
|> place seems to be more difficult to grasp and to 
|> perform with the mouse that with the cursor keys.

Which did they try first?

|> Or - another example - in a game which offers 
|> two ways to stop the game (essential to
|> be able to play it, at least for childs )- namely
|> an icon and a hard to find function key (F11), 
|> they constantly both prefered to use the function key.

Interesting...

|> On the other hand, they both had big fun moving 
|> windows around or to resize them, using the
|> mouse only. 

Heh heh.

|> >|> Moreover, I prefer
|> >|> to utilize that capability over the same capability to operate
|> >|> a mouse, sometimes, and don't want a system to actively prohibit
|> >|> my intention to do so, for whatever reason. 
|> 
|> >"actively prohibit"? 
|> 
|> Yes, by not providing a decent keyboard interface in the UI,
|> for "religious" reasons. One of the interface guidlines for
|> MS-Windows says that an application should provide a full
|> keyboard interface, i.e. that it should allow proper use
|> without a real pointing device. Most Windows programs follow 
|> that rule, by using and providing building blocks which
|> have a well thought out keyboard interface. 

Oh, I see. You have a point. I dont suppose it would
do any hard to provide a "full keyboard interface".

|> Windows proves that it is indeed possible to provide
|> both a good keyboard *and* a good mouse interface.

Hmmmmmm.. I dunno, the keyboard interface for windows has always
seemed clunky to me.

|> Apples "Human Interface Guidlines", on the other hand, don't
|> have a similar rule. To the contrary, they state "the pointing
|> device is used for pointing and manipulating, user's don't have
|> to use the keyboard to type commands. The keyboard is used 
|> primarily for entering text." The following rules in that book
|> define a very minimalistic set of actions to be performed by the
|> keyboard, and forbid other usages of the keyboard. 

Yeah, that's true. The idea is that you should have a "full mouse
interface" :) You shouldn't worry about the keyboard interface
to the point where it interferes with teh mouse interface.
(not that this happens much anyway); they may be why apple
was so conservative with it.

|> >Does it short out your keyboard or something? :)
|> 
|> In a way, yes. When sitting before such an interface,
|> sometimes I feel like having one hand tied to my
|> back.

Ok, so I walked right into that one..

|> >I suppose you mean it doesn't provide you with enough keyboard shortcuts.
|> >If that bothers you, you can put them in. (or just not use a Macintosh.
|> >I can certainly see how a keyboard addict would not like the Mac :) )
|> 
|> No, I don't want more shortcuts. I don't like shortcuts, and don't
|> use them very often. I want a keyboard interface which replicates
|> the pointing device interface. I want to use the keyboard to 
|> browse through menus, for example, not just to have a quick 
|> access to some hidden submenu entry. 

Hm. Ok. Well, whatever floats your boat. 'Tisn't what I want.
(but then again, I tolerate Chicago.. :) )

|> >It certainly doesn't bother me, or any other Macheads that I have
|> >noticed around here.
|> 
|> Well, people are different. I never said that you should be
|> forced to use a keyboard.

I know.
Im not exactly advocating forcing you to use a mouse, either.
Im just saying I dont think the keyboard interface is so
imprortant. If you just gotta have one tho, go for it. There
are no less than 2 other interfaces with this feature, and I suspect
you could find an extension to do this on a Mac.

[deletia- mental bandwidth]
|> >|> 
|> >|> Have you ever played Tetris? Of course, its highly repetitive, but
|> >|> so are a lot of other activities which one has to perform on a
|> >|> computer. How would you implement a mouse interface to Tetris?
|> 
|> >Games are not intended to be as easy as possible to  play.
|> 
|> You misunderstood my question. Design a mouse based interface
|> to the TEtris game, as easy to use as you like. Just don't
|> change the problem definition. 
|> 

I dont think I did. The keyboard interface is designed
to be restrictive. It only permits a few, simple, options.
The mouse would imply that you could do things like
dragging the peices anywhere, and so on. Its too
flexible for Tetris.

[deletia- this doesn't work. (yes, I know)]

|> [instruments...]
|> 
|> >|>             Of cause, this whole imagined discussion
|> >|> is totally absurd, just like our arguing about which 
|> >|> interface, keyboard or mouse, is better. 
|> 
|> >It seems to me that one could use less "bandwidth" than the other,
|> >but Im no musician I coulnd't say which.
|> 
|> >However, this is going to go nowhere fast. You don't believe
|> >in this congnitive limitation thingy, whereas I (we?) do. Without
|> >evidence (I haven't any handy, do you?), we won't convince each other
|> >of anything.
|> 
|> Oh, I believe it (well: consider it to be valid, probably). I 
|> just don't find it applied well. "Cognitive load" here is just
|> a buzzword as "intelligence quotient" is one. It is usefull as
|> a limited technical term in science, but it is as sensible to 
|> compare user interfaces from a users point of view, as 
|> it is wise to use an IQ to compare childs. It is NOT.

All I meant is that one could occupy more of your concentration
than the other, making it more difficult to think
of other things.

Sorry if I used a buzzword at you.

|> >|> >Hence, I find the argument perfectly plausable that keyboard commands
|> >|> >seem faster than mousing (but aren't) because the increased mental
|> >|> >effort "fills up the time," thereby distorting one's perception of
|> >|> >time.  Certainly, I have yet to see any alternative explanation.
|> >|> 
|> >|> I find that argument quite implausible, because its one of those
|> >|> arguments which have a built-in catch-22. You can't argue
|> >|> using your own experience, because the theory says that it is 
|> >|> misleading, and you can't make an experiment, because
|> >|> the whole scenario is not well defined. The only actions 
|> >|> where using the stopwatch as a measure makes sense
|> >|> are those which are repetetive, and - surprise - just those
|> >|> are an exception to the theory.
|> 
|> >Nasty isn't it? But by repetive we mean that you do the same physical
|> >action (extend that finger, etc..), not the same TASK.
|> 
|> >A test that seems reasonable to me is this: In a word processor,
|> >set up a document containing, on separate lines, the words "bold"
|> >"italic" "bold italic", "outline" (etc, etc). Provice such a document
|> >to someone using a GUI word processor and someone using a character
|> >based one. Instruct them to chang the styles of the words to match
|> >the words ("bold" is given the bold style, etc); Time how long it takes
|> >to do this.
|> 
|> I don't consider this test to be reasonable in the context of
|> what we discuss, for two reasons.

I knew that was coming. :)

|>  * I never argued that a "character based" editor would be superiour
|>    to a GUI based one. So the experiment tries to prove (or disprove)
|>    something what wasn't claimed at all.

Ok, then ditch the first scenario. I just misinderstood
what you had in mind.

|>  * It shows a very artificial situation, which seems to be constructed
|>    in a way which prefers a certain outcome. A more valid test would
|>    be to ask somebody to change all proper names in a text to bold, or
|>    to underscore all occurences of the words "mouse" and "keyboard".

So was you "test", you know (the one where you duplicate a line 10 times)

In any case your proposal here sounds just dandy to me.

[deletia- a more graphic apporoach to the above]
|> 
|> >Of course, this still permits the user to use the mouse to select text.
|> >Perhaps we could instruct the user to use the keyboard for that too. Hmmmm.
|> 
|> Why not give one person a GUI editor which provides both a keyboard
|> *and* a a mouse interface, and the other one the very same editor,
|> but with a disabled keyboard interface. Now give them the task
|> to copy parts of the content of a spreadsheed page to a new
|> letter and to formulate and add a paragraph which describes the copied 
|> table. After both are finished, measure how fast they did 
|> it, which letter looks better and which one contains less
|> errors, by counting spelling mistakes and stylistic and
|> semantic errors.

This is definitely rigged. If the mouse is faster, yer "keyboard"
user could just use it, but the "mouse" user can't do the
reverse. It cannot give any result in favor of the mouse.

|> 
|> >Anyway I think I have beat your Catch 22, except for the
|> >part where "the whole scenario is not well defined". I dont
|> >understand that part.
|> 
|> See above. We both tried to design an experiment which
|> tries to measure the very "quality" we where diskussing 
|> in this thread. Yet, I came up whith an experiment which 
|> is very different from yours.

You came up with an experminet that was really very similar
to mine, AND one that was very dissimilar. So what?

-- 
			- Dan Johnson
And God said "Jeeze, this is dull"... and it *WAS* dull. Genesis 0:0

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