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To have a great GUI, beyond looking nice and getting out of the way, it must be intuitive, and for that you need a metaphor that works, but the moment you use o

To have a great GUI, beyond looking nice and getting out of the way, it must be intuitive, and for that you need a metaphor that works, but the moment you use one you are also constrained, it's a very hard problem IMO. I like in the video is touching on Science fition interfaces, I found this video[1] you might ejoy, the author Chris Noessel has a google talk[2] about intefacing with AI in different ways and touches on interaction design, I'm trying to learn more about this. There was a link posted on HN that I can't find anymore, it was about better UI metaphors dropping breadcrumbs to traceback your path when you navigate across different sites and some 3D desktops with piles of documents ... I know is vague description, if annyone knows that link, please share :) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SRmmwK-CLs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SRmmwK-CLs [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cciGZ3BsLwA&t=1973s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cciGZ3BsLwA&t=1973s

tomxor 6y ago
> To have a great GUI, beyond looking nice and getting out of the way, it must be intuitive, and for that you need a metaphor that works. I don't buy that there is "good" GUI design in any absolute sense. "intuitive" is thrown around with too little thought in GUI discussion even though it is ambiguous. When disassembling the meaning of intuition is turns into familiarity - but there is a whole spectrum of familiarity. At the most fundamental there is _innate_ familiarity e.g direction, which is why arrow keys and cursor input are innateley intuitive. At the other end of the spectrum we have high level design mimicry or historical use, skeumoprhism, e.g the floppy disk save icon, checkboxes, 3D relief in UI elements as a reference to physical input devices. This is why "good" and "efficient" GUI design is also highly subjective, not because we don't all share a history that can be tapped for familiarity, surfacing conventions which are hard to escape - but because it's possible to be more efficient, more effective if we abandon those short term shortcuts and only hold onto the innate intuitions. For example I use a tiling window manager, I get to define my own shortcuts - all of them. I find it intuitive to alt+arrow-key to change window focus, and shift+alt+arrow-key to move a window - this comprises innate intuition + artificial almost contextless fabrication - i.e no normal user would be able to figure it out without reading a manual or defining it for themselves. This would also not generally be considered good GUI design, because it's not discoverable by people who are already familiar with historical GUIs, you have to put in effort to learn it - as would an alien using windows UI. and yet it is more efficient... In summary, "good" GUI design for the masses is highly constrained and dictated by history, not ability to conjure up good metaphors.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  > I don't buy that there is "good" GUI design in any absolute sense. "intuitive" is thrown around with too little thought in GUI discussion even though it is ambiguous. Long ago, in the primitive time of the 1980s, people actually did studies to show what worked and what didn't in GUI design. Almost all the lessons learned from those studies have been thrown away and replaced by... I don't even know. Gut feeling? Ease of implementation? Prettiness? Certainly not usability studies.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    References?

tomxor 6y ago

> To have a great GUI, beyond looking nice and getting out of the way, it must be intuitive, and for that you need a metaphor that works. I don't buy that there is "good" GUI design in any absolute sense. "intuitive" is thrown around with too little thought in GUI discussion even though it is ambiguous. When disassembling the meaning of intuition is turns into familiarity - but there is a whole spectrum of familiarity. At the most fundamental there is _innate_ familiarity e.g direction, which is why arrow keys and cursor input are innateley intuitive. At the other end of the spectrum we have high level design mimicry or historical use, skeumoprhism, e.g the floppy disk save icon, checkboxes, 3D relief in UI elements as a reference to physical input devices. This is why "good" and "efficient" GUI design is also highly subjective, not because we don't all share a history that can be tapped for familiarity, surfacing conventions which are hard to escape - but because it's possible to be more efficient, more effective if we abandon those short term shortcuts and only hold onto the innate intuitions. For example I use a tiling window manager, I get to define my own shortcuts - all of them. I find it intuitive to alt+arrow-key to change window focus, and shift+alt+arrow-key to move a window - this comprises innate intuition + artificial almost contextless fabrication - i.e no normal user would be able to figure it out without reading a manual or defining it for themselves. This would also not generally be considered good GUI design, because it's not discoverable by people who are already familiar with historical GUIs, you have to put in effort to learn it - as would an alien using windows UI. and yet it is more efficient... In summary, "good" GUI design for the masses is highly constrained and dictated by history, not ability to conjure up good metaphors.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
> I don't buy that there is "good" GUI design in any absolute sense. "intuitive" is thrown around with too little thought in GUI discussion even though it is ambiguous. Long ago, in the primitive time of the 1980s, people actually did studies to show what worked and what didn't in GUI design. Almost all the lessons learned from those studies have been thrown away and replaced by... I don't even know. Gut feeling? Ease of implementation? Prettiness? Certainly not usability studies.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  References?