We're all Wimps these days. That is, almost all of us who use computers do so by means of Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers. The idea is that the interface of some applications might be more accessible if it was designed to mimic a real-world object, rather than to comply with the rules set down in the operating system. The Human Computer Interface lab at IBM is probably the leading proponent of the new theory. Its leader, Tony Temple, points out that the windows we take as a given on our computers are really the result of a compromise.
Computers find it faster and easier to plot rectangles than other shapes.
With memory and processing power at a premium when the interfaces were conceived in the 70s and early 80s, rectangular windows were simply an achievable graphic device. IBM's new idea is that people will be less confused if, when using a computer telephony application, they deal with something that actually looks like a phone. But the first big company to go with it has been Apple Computer, whose new QuickTime Player has, at its default setting, the size and appearance of a handheld device that plays MP3, video and other multimedia. If such a device, with its curvy contours and all, existed, then everyone would want one. But it doesn't.