10 ms·

The linked article by Bret Victor on the future of computer interfaces is worth reading: http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/ http://

• makmanalp 10y ago
  Well, so the thing that I think people don't realize about gestural interfaces is that gestures are hard to do and tiring to do all day. They are also very low bandwidth. Typing is hard to beat in terms of bandwidth / strain. But there are things that gesturing is better at, and I like that that article focuses on that. I think the mistake is to try to get a catchall. That's why we have both a keyboard and a touchpad / mouse. Each does a different kind of task. Touchscreen typing, on the other hand, is a step back. Game console typing is like 20 steps back.
  • douche 10y ago
    I'm not sure mouse and keyboard will be unseated from the top spot until we get to the point of straight mind-machine interfaces.
    • klodolph 10y ago
      Speech to text has been making a strong showing recently. It's been creeping more and more in my life as a faster and easier alternative to keyboard input. It does take some practice, though, so I encourage people not to dismiss it based on their first impressions.
      • cmdrfred 10y ago
        If your Eminem maybe, I can type faster than I can talk.
        • appleiigs 10y ago
          Siri cuts me off mid sentence because I talk too slow.
        • klodolph 10y ago
          Average conversational speed is 110 to 150 WPM. Maybe you type unusually fast? Professional typists might type at 80 WPM and it takes experienced stenographers to keep up with normal conversations. Again, speaking for speech to text takes some practice, so it doesn't quite make sense to compare a lifetime of typing against your first shot at speech recognition.
          • jacobolus 10y ago
            Stenographers can type 300+ wpm on phonetic chording keyboards with appropriate predefined shortcuts. People can also write shorthand with a pen at 300+ wpm. A big part of the problem with regular typing is that our phonetic alphabet is not optimized for writing efficiency. Sometimes a single syllable takes 5+ discrete characters to type. Standard QWERTY-style keyboards are also designed to use single finger motions in serial fashion, and requires various awkward combinations of finger motions and plenty of repositioning between keypresses; the design is designed for learnability rather than efficiency, and wastes much of the possible bandwidth of the hands. If someone with deep knowledge of human hand physiology / neuroanatomy were to design a keyboard optimized for efficiency (at the expense of requiring years to properly master), we could probably push peak performance to 400–500 wpm. At some point thinking speed is the main bottleneck though. Regular QWERTY keyboards are fast enough to keep up well enough with most writing tasks.
  • nitrogen 10y ago
    What are some good examples of gestures that work better than alternative input devices? It seems to me like the obvious choices of zooming, scrolling, and rotating things can all be done better with buttons, a mouse, a wheel, or a knob. I can press the back button on my mouse a lot faster than I can two-finger-swipe to go back a page.
    • lathiat 10y ago
      I find zooming to be infinitely better done as a gesture - whether on screen or on a trackpad.
      • pilom 10y ago
        The problem is when are you zooming and when are you rotating? Google Maps on the phone is a great example. I find myself using "tap then flick up or down" or just the +- buttons much more useful because they don't require my second hand and won't accidentally rotate the map.
    • makmanalp 10y ago
      Call me unimaginative, but I think fingers are good at manipulation more so than hand signs. So I can imagine either stuff like 3d modelling tasks, or when you're interacting with a 3d world (think games). Smush-deforming play doh with your hand is so much quicker and more precise than trying to do the same with a mouse or shudder keyboard. Or imagine doing knitting. I think hands are great when there is a massive multitude of possible next actions, like the knitting example, or artistic applications. Otherwise, if we can logically eliminate options of what the user could be doing (this object can only go in so many slots, etc), it's easy to just assist the user with that (think snap-to-grid) and then a precision input device is less necessary.
    • tetrep 10y ago
      > I can press the back button on my mouse a lot faster than I can two-finger-swipe to go back a page. Big assumption that you're using a mouse (especially considering the ubiquitousness of laptops). Laptops provide a ready-made surface for fully portable use and I've found getting using a touchpad for professional and personal use[0] to be more than sufficient and that the availability of easy to use gestures is very nice. If you haven't tried gestures on OS X with Apple's touch hardware, I'd highly recommend attempting to use them regularly. I got a fancy Razer Blade 2016 and using the touchpad is significantly worse than an Apple laptop, and OS X has much better native touch support (3rd party software might make Windows better). I'd say touch interfaces are great compliments to keyboards for text editing workflows (more or less all I do professionally), you don't even need to move your hands off the keyboard to get a mouse (hooray thumbs!). I would liken getting used to laptop keyboard/touchpad as getting used to a minimalist *nix install. It's difficult at first, but once you get used to it you have a great skillset that lets you do anything you want on almost any computer. Not that you should never nice high-level and user friendly programs, but being able to drop down a level of abstraction and still get the job done is great for understanding how systems work. [0]: most of my video games suck without a mouse, but that's the only wall my personal use runs into
  • WorldMaker 10y ago
    «I think people don't realize about gestural interfaces is that gestures are hard to do and tiring to do all day.» To be critical, this is a biological feature much more than it is a bug. Our bodies don't have very good feedback mechanisms for the small accumulative damage from fine motor control, which leads to things like RSI and Carpal Tunnel with very few in-between indicators. In a way, moving to a more gestural interface that feels physically tiring is a possible means to better overall ergonomics because people actually start to get real feedback (tiredness, soreness) telling them to take a break every now and then when they are physically straining themselves.
  • dgudkov 10y ago
    >Typing is hard to beat in terms of bandwidth / strain We type only because we can't talk to computers (although it starts changing). Voice control would easily beat typing.
    • ethanbond 10y ago
      So long as there's not another human being within earshot of you which is... rare for computing contexts.
      • dgudkov 10y ago
        I don't see this as a problem. At some point voice recognition will be able to distinguish one individual from another by voice. Also with directed/implanted microphones you might be able to just whisper instead of talking.
        • ethanbond 10y ago
          Really? Go walk around Facebook's ridiculous one-room office building, experience the ridiculously distracting noise level, and then tell me you "don't see this as a problem" when it's exacerbated by voice controlled computers. That sounds awful.
    • harterrt 10y ago
      Really? Voice input is faster for entering text. However, I can't imagine editing text by voice would ever be faster than using a keyboard.
      • dgudkov 10y ago
        I believe it's just a matter of proper voice interface and commands. Most probably it would require elements of AI for context awareness.
    • jacobolus 10y ago
      Phonetic chording keyboards are faster than typical speech, they just take a lot of training to learn. A regular keyboard with extensive custom shortcuts for common words is also potentially faster than speech, but not nearly as ergonomically friendly as a chording keyboard. Keyboards are also much better than speech for making very precise inputs. You’ll be hard-pressed to invent a speech interface which outdoes vim (for instance) for efficiency at general text editing tasks, even if you have a general AI interpreting the speech commands. Even just for straight typing computer code, mathematical formulae, musical notes, poetry with precise constraints on punctuation & spelling & layout, or e.g. controlling a video game or CAD program, a keyboard is much more effective than speech. A keyboard input can also have real-time response to partial input, like autocomplete, etc. Perhaps most importantly, typing on a keyboard doesn’t distract/leak the content of your typing to everyone in earshot.
• toomanybeersies 10y ago
  > Our futuristic starship control panel should be a custom-manufactured physical interface instead of a cheap glass panel I disagree. Modern aviation has been moving away from physical controls and towards generic screens. The last gen of fighter aircraft (The F/A-18, later block F-16s, the F-22) have a collection of generic screens with context sensitive buttons on the side for control. The F-35 takes this a step further and has a single large screen (which is also apparently a touch screen). In something as complex as an aircraft (or a starship), there are hundreds (or thousands) of different controls. Look at the cockpit of an older aircraft (e.g. a Boeing 747) as an example. Most of the controls in a cockpit are used in certain situations, you don't need to control the landing gear or the brakes when you're at 30,000 feet. By using generic displays, the relevant controls for the current situation can be shown. Yes, it is more difficult to operate the controls by feel, but this is less of a worry in aviation, where you're usually several thousand feet from anything else, than it is in a car, for example. So of course, it's all about the expected situation, you wouldn't want a little touch screen that you swipe for the safety on an assault rifle, for instance, because you need to be able to do it by feel in various situations. But a swipe unlock is perfectly acceptable for a phone.