6 ms·

"The use of metaphors worked when people didn't know what a computer was, and the only way to make its UI make sense was to mimic real-world objects. Now, this

"The use of metaphors worked when people didn't know what a computer was, and the only way to make its UI make sense was to mimic real-world objects. Now, this is no longer necessary. It's been 40 years." I disagree strongly. It is now more needed than ever. 40 years ago, the majority of people using computers knew what they were doing. Now, they're everywhere, and people interact with them every day. It's very common to have to interact with a computer we have never interacted with before, and the need to give visual clues to the user is far more important than ever before. It's also very common now for people to simply reach out and grab new software; a well-designed interface that uses visual clues and cues to help people achieve their goals is much more important now than the days when people would actually sit down with the manual to work out how to operate their new piece of software. I am routinely unable to immediately answer a phone that isn't mine because none of the pictures drawn on the screen are obviously about answering a phone.

56k 10y ago
The point is that an icon that shows a stylized phone handle is better in 2016 than a skeuomorphic depiction of a whole rotary phone.
coldtea 10y ago
>40 years ago, the majority of people using computers knew what they were doing. You think that 10 and 20 year olds growing up with computers and even smartphones available for all of their life, know less of computers than people in the past? Even a 7 year old that plays games can almost run circles around a 1980s propellerhead computer programmer in using a GUI. Compared to regular people (e.g. office workers) from 40 years ago that just used DOS and some word processor or POS or accounting program, there's just no comparison.
- EliRivers 10y ago
  You think that 10 and 20 year olds growing up with computers and even smartphones available for all of their life, know less of computers than people in the past? Most of them don't know a thing about computers. It's a magic box with a small selection of shiny buttons on. They use it for passive media consumption. Even a 7 year old that plays games can almost run circles around a 1980s propellerhead computer programmer in using a GUI. Well, they clearly forget by the time they're twenty. http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/10/millennials-arent-as-tech-savvy-as-people-think.html http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/10/millennials-arent-as-tech-sav... http://www.millennialmarketing.com/2010/04/millennials-tech-dependent-but-not-necessarily-tech-savvy/ http://www.millennialmarketing.com/2010/04/millennials-tech-...
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Most of them don't know a thing about computers. It's a magic box with a small selection of shiny buttons on. They use it for passive media consumption. You'd be surprised. Except by "know about computers" you mean they known about interrupts, and cache lines, and filesystem design, and other stuff that are completely inconsequential to using their computers. >Well, they clearly forget by the time they're twenty. Actually the linked article states the opposite: >"This current generation of young people has never lived without tech," said Linda Rosen, CEO of Change the Equation. "It's second nature to them." Yet, using technology for social reasons doesn't make a person adept at using it in other settings, she said. So it's not that they "forgot" something, it's that they never bothered to learn it in the first place, e.g. Excel or whatever. But computers, for what they do like to use them for, are "second nature" to them according to TFA.
    - EliRivers 10y ago
      You'd be surprised. I disagree. The catalogue of complaints listed in this article are the norm. http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/ http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-comput...
    - homingbrain 10y ago
      It's not that they're bad at what they do with computers. It's just what they do with computers is not worth doing.
      - potatolicious 10y ago
        I've often wondered at what point HN would cross the rubicon from "old people, so bad at tech!" to "young whippersnappers, so bad at tech!" It seems that this happened somewhat recently. Suffice it to say - just like you felt when you were younger - most thoughts that boil down to "damn kids these days!" are almost certainly not true.
        erelde 10y ago
- ACow_Adonis 10y ago
  I think they know less than the people who were using computers back then. The difference is of course that today computers are used by more of the general public for communication, office, and media consumption, rather than (only) bunch of tech savvy specialists. Most of my generation and the generation that followed barely have a concept of a computer beyond "press the thing to make things happen". They know no more about their telephones now than did the people using the landlines of 20 years ago, or how much most people understood the internals of TV or radio or fridges. As for running circles around people while using a GUI, while I accept there are specialized fields and exceptions that disprove the rule, outside of marketing presentations I just don't see it happen. As much as any generalisation can be valid, the GUI does not run circles around anyone that can actually program and is generally the mark of the computer novice/consumer...
  - yoz-y 10y ago
    > As for running circles around people while using a GUI, while I accept there are specialised fields and exceptions that disprove the rule, outside of marketing presentations I just don't see it happen. As much as any generalisation can be valid, the GUI does not run circles around anyone that can actually program and is generally the mark of the computer novice/consumer... I wonder. Every time I see a colleague using command line to do git operations I get itchy and think to myself "oh, come on! I could've done this in gui in seconds". Each interface has its time and place, but to me using a GUI is more of a mark of valuing one's time than that of a novice.
    - dceddia 10y ago
      I think it depends on the operations being performed. Adding a subset of the changed files? Holding ctrl/cmd and clicking the files is probably faster than typing all those names out on the command line. Need to pull some new code though, or commit changes? I think "git pull" or "git ci -m 'Message'" is faster than opening up a complicated GUI window with lots of decisions to make.
    - vetinari 10y ago
      Your colleague doesn't use completion? To me, using CLI is like having a conversation, with much richer vocabulary, than GUI. That's just pointing at things.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  > You think that 10 and 20 year olds growing up with computers and even smartphones available for all of their life, know less of computers than people in the past? Yes. Aptitude with screwing around with a GUI isn't very relevant. 40 years ago, computers were at best used by clerk type people for specific tasks at a terminal. Accountants were using tabulation machines, written materials were on IBM selectrics. The people engaged in professional work with computers were mostly programmers or others doing "data processes" or working with business analyst types to model business process around workloads that could live with the available computing resources.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Yes. Aptitude with screwing around with a GUI isn't very relevant. It is relevant to actual stuff they want done. Unless they are programmers aptitude in screwing around with cli commands isn't very relevant.
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
You are greatly overestimating the ability of computer users in the 1976.

56k 10y ago

The point is that an icon that shows a stylized phone handle is better in 2016 than a skeuomorphic depiction of a whole rotary phone.

coldtea 10y ago

>40 years ago, the majority of people using computers knew what they were doing. You think that 10 and 20 year olds growing up with computers and even smartphones available for all of their life, know less of computers than people in the past? Even a 7 year old that plays games can almost run circles around a 1980s propellerhead computer programmer in using a GUI. Compared to regular people (e.g. office workers) from 40 years ago that just used DOS and some word processor or POS or accounting program, there's just no comparison.

EliRivers 10y ago
You think that 10 and 20 year olds growing up with computers and even smartphones available for all of their life, know less of computers than people in the past? Most of them don't know a thing about computers. It's a magic box with a small selection of shiny buttons on. They use it for passive media consumption. Even a 7 year old that plays games can almost run circles around a 1980s propellerhead computer programmer in using a GUI. Well, they clearly forget by the time they're twenty. http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/10/millennials-arent-as-tech-savvy-as-people-think.html http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/10/millennials-arent-as-tech-sav... http://www.millennialmarketing.com/2010/04/millennials-tech-dependent-but-not-necessarily-tech-savvy/ http://www.millennialmarketing.com/2010/04/millennials-tech-...
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Most of them don't know a thing about computers. It's a magic box with a small selection of shiny buttons on. They use it for passive media consumption. You'd be surprised. Except by "know about computers" you mean they known about interrupts, and cache lines, and filesystem design, and other stuff that are completely inconsequential to using their computers. >Well, they clearly forget by the time they're twenty. Actually the linked article states the opposite: >"This current generation of young people has never lived without tech," said Linda Rosen, CEO of Change the Equation. "It's second nature to them." Yet, using technology for social reasons doesn't make a person adept at using it in other settings, she said. So it's not that they "forgot" something, it's that they never bothered to learn it in the first place, e.g. Excel or whatever. But computers, for what they do like to use them for, are "second nature" to them according to TFA.
  - EliRivers 10y ago
    You'd be surprised. I disagree. The catalogue of complaints listed in this article are the norm. http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/ http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-comput...
  - homingbrain 10y ago
    It's not that they're bad at what they do with computers. It's just what they do with computers is not worth doing.
    - potatolicious 10y ago
      I've often wondered at what point HN would cross the rubicon from "old people, so bad at tech!" to "young whippersnappers, so bad at tech!" It seems that this happened somewhat recently. Suffice it to say - just like you felt when you were younger - most thoughts that boil down to "damn kids these days!" are almost certainly not true.
      - erelde 10y ago
ACow_Adonis 10y ago
I think they know less than the people who were using computers back then. The difference is of course that today computers are used by more of the general public for communication, office, and media consumption, rather than (only) bunch of tech savvy specialists. Most of my generation and the generation that followed barely have a concept of a computer beyond "press the thing to make things happen". They know no more about their telephones now than did the people using the landlines of 20 years ago, or how much most people understood the internals of TV or radio or fridges. As for running circles around people while using a GUI, while I accept there are specialized fields and exceptions that disprove the rule, outside of marketing presentations I just don't see it happen. As much as any generalisation can be valid, the GUI does not run circles around anyone that can actually program and is generally the mark of the computer novice/consumer...
- yoz-y 10y ago
  > As for running circles around people while using a GUI, while I accept there are specialised fields and exceptions that disprove the rule, outside of marketing presentations I just don't see it happen. As much as any generalisation can be valid, the GUI does not run circles around anyone that can actually program and is generally the mark of the computer novice/consumer... I wonder. Every time I see a colleague using command line to do git operations I get itchy and think to myself "oh, come on! I could've done this in gui in seconds". Each interface has its time and place, but to me using a GUI is more of a mark of valuing one's time than that of a novice.
  - dceddia 10y ago
    I think it depends on the operations being performed. Adding a subset of the changed files? Holding ctrl/cmd and clicking the files is probably faster than typing all those names out on the command line. Need to pull some new code though, or commit changes? I think "git pull" or "git ci -m 'Message'" is faster than opening up a complicated GUI window with lots of decisions to make.
  - vetinari 10y ago
    Your colleague doesn't use completion? To me, using CLI is like having a conversation, with much richer vocabulary, than GUI. That's just pointing at things.
Spooky23 10y ago
> You think that 10 and 20 year olds growing up with computers and even smartphones available for all of their life, know less of computers than people in the past? Yes. Aptitude with screwing around with a GUI isn't very relevant. 40 years ago, computers were at best used by clerk type people for specific tasks at a terminal. Accountants were using tabulation machines, written materials were on IBM selectrics. The people engaged in professional work with computers were mostly programmers or others doing "data processes" or working with business analyst types to model business process around workloads that could live with the available computing resources.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Yes. Aptitude with screwing around with a GUI isn't very relevant. It is relevant to actual stuff they want done. Unless they are programmers aptitude in screwing around with cli commands isn't very relevant.

GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago

You are greatly overestimating the ability of computer users in the 1976.