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They were probably formally studying people who had never seen or used a GUI before. Visible controls were a great crutch that helped get us to the point where
by jart 5y ago
They were probably formally studying people who had never seen or used a GUI before. Visible controls were a great crutch that helped get us to the point where we don't need them anymore. Because at the end of the day, content is king. For example, Netscape Navigator 4.0 had a big button labeled Find with a little binoculars icon. Today, everyone knows about CTRL+F. So we can use that screen space for the thing we care about, which is content.
We still have much further to go. My main display doesn't have a single UI element on it. It's a terminal in full screen mode. Except devoting 100% of the display to content wasn't enough for me. I wanted a third dimension of content. So I modified the terminal software so that I could control transparency by shift + scroll wheeling which means I can play movies in VLC running in full screen mode underneath the full screen terminal. That's my design. Terminal and television. The most important use cases of the most important devices of the twentieth century.
- flukus 5y ago> Today, everyone knows about CTRL+F. Not everyone knows that, I don't even think to try it unless there's a corresponding control or menu item. It's also not universal, outlook is one of the most heavily used GUIs in the world and ctrl-f means forward in that. Then you've got the ubiquity of touch screens where ctrl-f isn't even an option. > They were probably formally studying people who had never seen or used a GUI before Everyone's seen a GUI, but that doesn't mean they've seen the particular GUI they're trying to use at any given time.
- johannes1234321 5y agoThis leads to the Safari version Apple presented this week: even the "reload" button is gone now. I think it is true that people learn and we can assume other things now. But still there must be discoverability of such features.