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It makes me think that we need a new type of class in schools across the land immediately. Electronic literacy. Negatory. We need to improve our UI metaphors.

It makes me think that we need a new type of class in schools across the land immediately. Electronic literacy. Negatory. We need to improve our UI metaphors. In the case of finding something, holding down one key while pressing another has no parallel to real life searching. Let me tell you a story about my mum trying to view a slideshow on a mac. She double clicked on one of the photos (double clicking didn't come natural for her, but that's another story). Then she tried using the left and right arrows. Nothing. I noticed that Preview was only loading up the photo she clicked on, so there was only one photo in the slideshow. I helped her by selecting all the photos and dragging them onto the preview application. But select-all and drag onto an icon had no real life metaphor for my mum and I didn't even bother trying to explain why it worked. (Maybe if there was some image of a slide projector and she could drag each image into a slot...but then again, I've got a terrible UI brain...) tl;dr: if the UI is broken, fix the UI, not the end user.

starwed 15y ago
>In the case of finding something, holding down one key while pressing another has no parallel to real life searching. Ok, so you would recommend what? A single key? But remember, it needs to work in a text editor where you're actually typing stuff. Of course, searching is such a fundamental verb that there probably should be a dedicated key on keyboards for it. In fact, on android phones, one of the four standard hardware buttons is for search. But the designers of most software have to work in the absence of such sensible input devices.
- rkowalick 15y ago
  Ok, so you would recommend what? A single key? But remember, it needs to work in a text editor where you're actually typing stuff. I hate to be the guy, but the "/" key definitely works to find something on firefox (and lots of programs), and definitely works in at least one text editor I know of...
  - starwed 15y ago
    Sure, and I always use "/" in Firefox. But we're talking about for the benefit of people using Word and other like editors.
    - Prisen 15y ago
      "/" is also not a single key on all keyboard configurations. On a swedish keyboard it's shift+7, hardly any easier than ctrl+f.
      - xiaoma 15y ago
        There are fewer people in all of Sweeden than the city in which I currently live. I don't think theirs is the keyboard the world should be optimising for.
        weinzierl 15y ago
        There are fewer people in all of the US than the rest of the world. I don't think theirs is the keyboard the world should be optimising for.
        xiaoma 15y ago
        Check my profile. I'm in Beijing. Like it or not, the vast majority of the world uses a keyboard layout closer to that of the US than of Sweden.
  - dave1010uk 15y ago
    Slightly off-topic, but you can also use an apostrophe (') to search text only inside links. Really handy for navigating pages without the mouse.
Pewpewarrows 15y ago
There's a lot to be said in terms of better UI design. But at some point you really can't eliminate any more: there has to be a baseline of new interactions that someone must learn. Pushing peddles, turning a wheel, and shifting a stick into different positions didn't have many parallels to real-life actions before the automobile was invented, but people learned that UI regardless.
- seabee 15y ago
  You have to be trained before you can drive, however.
  - patrickaljord 15y ago
    Because the law requires it, and it requires it because people who can't drive can kill or harm themselves and people around them. If there was absolutely no risk of harming or killing, the law would probably not require training before you can drive. If not being able to use a computer meant killing or harming people, the law would probably require training but because there is no such danger, no one cares and everyone can buy a computer and start using it with no training.
  - SoftwareMaven 15y ago
    I taught myself to ride a motorcycle after somebody explained the throttle, clutch, brakes, and shifter. Giving some basics is not an unreasonable way to get people into the 21st century. People can take it from there.
    - bradfa 15y ago
      Sure, same for me learning to shift a manual trans four wheeler. But for a huge portion of the population, that's not how their brains work. I described in detail to my wife how manual transmissions work, she couldn't care less to remember it because she had no direct immediate use for that info so she still doesn't know how to drive one. She's a very smart person but the UI of it doesn't fit her existing knowledge. Without direct application of provided knowledge, the best way to get someone to remember is to make doing the thing intuitive.
nkassis 15y ago
The thing is I think end users are evolving. I find that the generations that grew up before pervasive computers were pervasive are the ones having the most issue with these things. When I watch my 7 year old nephew use a computer 10 times better than his parents, it makes me thing that maybe designing UI to match "real life" concepts might not work so well for future users. Desktops, folders, ... those concepts that are supposed to match real things are now becoming a hindrance and limitation on the older computer users today. Just the idea of having the same file be part of multiple folders is complicated for some users.
- inportb 15y ago
  I think Google's label/tag metaphor for email classification is rather natural. Of course, it could get confusing when your labels are implemented using folders, such as via links.
- dredmorbius 15y ago
  There's some truth to that. But there's also a lot of shallow knowledge among the digital natives -- kids who've grown up in a world where there have always been computers, GUIs, Google, YouTube, or now, even Facebook and other social networks. They know the basics, they're not afraid of them, but unless they've either been taught or are self-motivated to explore, discover, and learn, they are rote users, not informed users.
kalleboo 15y ago
> holding down one key while pressing another has no parallel to real life searching. Yeah, but having a device instantly find something for you among a stack of 100 pages also has no parallel to real-life searching. The parallel to real life searching is paging through pages one by one, or browsing an index - precisely the things we're trying to get away from. If you stretch your search for metaphors too far you end up with outdated ones nobody knows about - like for searching it'd be the old library card catalog. Heck even today, I bet a majority of computer uses have never used a filing cabinet with documents in folders. At some point we have to create new metaphors, when the digital realm create opportunities that never existed in the real world
rickmb 15y ago
I disagree. If we want our society to take full advantage of the technology, we need to remove the training wheels and ditch the tired old half-assed and extremely limited metaphors. It's time we started using technology like adults, instead of children. The UI may be far from perfect, but the end user is the bottleneck here. The ctrl-F issue is a perfect example: the problem is not that people don't know the key combination or that the UI is bad, the problem is the they can not imagine such blatantly obvious functionality would be there in the first place. If they did, they would have found the damn keys/icons/gestures, no matter how obscure.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  I agree completely with what you said, but think about why it is blatantly obvious to you. It's obvious because you know the web page is a document with images overlaid with text. Imagine instead that you are viewing an image in a photo viewer that has some text. Would you think to ctrl+f that? I wouldn't. The end-user you're referring to doesn't know the difference between the two scenarios.
gcr 15y ago
So something like Microsoft Bob?
- runn1ng 15y ago
  More like something like iPad.
  - beza1e1 15y ago
    How do you do Ctrl+F on the iPad?
    - DougBTX 15y ago
      You... tap on a spanner, then a magnifying glass... http://www.tabletpcreview.com/shared/picture.asp?f=6024 http://www.tabletpcreview.com/shared/picture.asp?f=6024
      - mkr-hn 15y ago
        What does a wrench have to do with searching? It's no better than Ctrl+F and filing cabinets. I usually associate wrenches with configuration screens, so that would confuse me. I would assume the find menu under the wrench is to look for configuration options, like the configuration search in Chrome.
        DougBTX 15y ago
        Chrome is actually an interesting example, because the UI for find-on-page is identical to the one in iPad Pages - click on a spanner/wrench then on "Find...". It makes even less sense in other applications - "Find" is normally in the "Edit" menu, but finding is quite specifically about reading, not writing. So why in the Edit menu? It makes sense that 90% of people wouldn't be able to find it...
    - Flow 15y ago
      http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/971141 http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/971141 Not very obvious. I just can't remember this one.
perlgeek 15y ago
So what's your UI metaphor for Ctrl+f? My point is that software offers possibilities that go way beyond our real-life experience; there might not always exist a good real-world metaphor for all useful operations, at which point education becomes crucial.
- gambler 15y ago
  We don't need a metaphor. We simply need a "menu" that shows up when you're holding Ctrl that lists the possible continuations of the shortcut along with brief descriptions. I think being "intuitive" and being easily discoverable are not the same thing for UI, and designers pay too much attention to the former while ignoring the latter. For example, command line options for Unix programs are not intuitive at all, but they are very easy to discover via a standard mechanism that most system users are familiar with (man). Good interfaces communicate thing to the user. "Natural" interfaces only use things that have already been communicated or otherwise learned, which makes them much less flexible.
  - Sniffnoy 15y ago
    We have the menu bar up top. The problem is people not knowing they can search, not that they don't know the shortcut for it. If people can't get it from the menu bar, I don't see how this would help.
arantius 15y ago
> Negatory. We need to improve our UI metaphors. In the case of finding something, holding down one key while pressing another has no parallel to real life searching. I rather strongly disagree. You're essentially saying: we should limiting the capabilities of tools (regardless of whether they are electronic or not) to things that already have a direct and obvious parallel to previously existing things that are wholly obvious. That essentially means: we should stop all progress. Absolutely not. Human beings are tool users, and tool _makers_. We make new tools to serve new problems. We learn how to use them. Via this mechanism, we advance.

starwed 15y ago

>In the case of finding something, holding down one key while pressing another has no parallel to real life searching. Ok, so you would recommend what? A single key? But remember, it needs to work in a text editor where you're actually typing stuff. Of course, searching is such a fundamental verb that there probably should be a dedicated key on keyboards for it. In fact, on android phones, one of the four standard hardware buttons is for search. But the designers of most software have to work in the absence of such sensible input devices.

rkowalick 15y ago
Ok, so you would recommend what? A single key? But remember, it needs to work in a text editor where you're actually typing stuff. I hate to be the guy, but the "/" key definitely works to find something on firefox (and lots of programs), and definitely works in at least one text editor I know of...
- starwed 15y ago
  Sure, and I always use "/" in Firefox. But we're talking about for the benefit of people using Word and other like editors.
  - Prisen 15y ago
    "/" is also not a single key on all keyboard configurations. On a swedish keyboard it's shift+7, hardly any easier than ctrl+f.
    - xiaoma 15y ago
      There are fewer people in all of Sweeden than the city in which I currently live. I don't think theirs is the keyboard the world should be optimising for.
      - weinzierl 15y ago
        There are fewer people in all of the US than the rest of the world. I don't think theirs is the keyboard the world should be optimising for.
        xiaoma 15y ago
        Check my profile. I'm in Beijing. Like it or not, the vast majority of the world uses a keyboard layout closer to that of the US than of Sweden.
- dave1010uk 15y ago
  Slightly off-topic, but you can also use an apostrophe (') to search text only inside links. Really handy for navigating pages without the mouse.

Pewpewarrows 15y ago

There's a lot to be said in terms of better UI design. But at some point you really can't eliminate any more: there has to be a baseline of new interactions that someone must learn. Pushing peddles, turning a wheel, and shifting a stick into different positions didn't have many parallels to real-life actions before the automobile was invented, but people learned that UI regardless.

seabee 15y ago
You have to be trained before you can drive, however.
- patrickaljord 15y ago
  Because the law requires it, and it requires it because people who can't drive can kill or harm themselves and people around them. If there was absolutely no risk of harming or killing, the law would probably not require training before you can drive. If not being able to use a computer meant killing or harming people, the law would probably require training but because there is no such danger, no one cares and everyone can buy a computer and start using it with no training.
- SoftwareMaven 15y ago
  I taught myself to ride a motorcycle after somebody explained the throttle, clutch, brakes, and shifter. Giving some basics is not an unreasonable way to get people into the 21st century. People can take it from there.
  - bradfa 15y ago
    Sure, same for me learning to shift a manual trans four wheeler. But for a huge portion of the population, that's not how their brains work. I described in detail to my wife how manual transmissions work, she couldn't care less to remember it because she had no direct immediate use for that info so she still doesn't know how to drive one. She's a very smart person but the UI of it doesn't fit her existing knowledge. Without direct application of provided knowledge, the best way to get someone to remember is to make doing the thing intuitive.

nkassis 15y ago

The thing is I think end users are evolving. I find that the generations that grew up before pervasive computers were pervasive are the ones having the most issue with these things. When I watch my 7 year old nephew use a computer 10 times better than his parents, it makes me thing that maybe designing UI to match "real life" concepts might not work so well for future users. Desktops, folders, ... those concepts that are supposed to match real things are now becoming a hindrance and limitation on the older computer users today. Just the idea of having the same file be part of multiple folders is complicated for some users.

inportb 15y ago
I think Google's label/tag metaphor for email classification is rather natural. Of course, it could get confusing when your labels are implemented using folders, such as via links.
dredmorbius 15y ago
There's some truth to that. But there's also a lot of shallow knowledge among the digital natives -- kids who've grown up in a world where there have always been computers, GUIs, Google, YouTube, or now, even Facebook and other social networks. They know the basics, they're not afraid of them, but unless they've either been taught or are self-motivated to explore, discover, and learn, they are rote users, not informed users.

kalleboo 15y ago

> holding down one key while pressing another has no parallel to real life searching. Yeah, but having a device instantly find something for you among a stack of 100 pages also has no parallel to real-life searching. The parallel to real life searching is paging through pages one by one, or browsing an index - precisely the things we're trying to get away from. If you stretch your search for metaphors too far you end up with outdated ones nobody knows about - like for searching it'd be the old library card catalog. Heck even today, I bet a majority of computer uses have never used a filing cabinet with documents in folders. At some point we have to create new metaphors, when the digital realm create opportunities that never existed in the real world

rickmb 15y ago

I disagree. If we want our society to take full advantage of the technology, we need to remove the training wheels and ditch the tired old half-assed and extremely limited metaphors. It's time we started using technology like adults, instead of children. The UI may be far from perfect, but the end user is the bottleneck here. The ctrl-F issue is a perfect example: the problem is not that people don't know the key combination or that the UI is bad, the problem is the they can not imagine such blatantly obvious functionality would be there in the first place. If they did, they would have found the damn keys/icons/gestures, no matter how obscure.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
I agree completely with what you said, but think about why it is blatantly obvious to you. It's obvious because you know the web page is a document with images overlaid with text. Imagine instead that you are viewing an image in a photo viewer that has some text. Would you think to ctrl+f that? I wouldn't. The end-user you're referring to doesn't know the difference between the two scenarios.

gcr 15y ago

So something like Microsoft Bob?

runn1ng 15y ago
More like something like iPad.
- beza1e1 15y ago
  How do you do Ctrl+F on the iPad?
  - DougBTX 15y ago
    You... tap on a spanner, then a magnifying glass... http://www.tabletpcreview.com/shared/picture.asp?f=6024 http://www.tabletpcreview.com/shared/picture.asp?f=6024
    - mkr-hn 15y ago
      What does a wrench have to do with searching? It's no better than Ctrl+F and filing cabinets. I usually associate wrenches with configuration screens, so that would confuse me. I would assume the find menu under the wrench is to look for configuration options, like the configuration search in Chrome.
      - DougBTX 15y ago
        Chrome is actually an interesting example, because the UI for find-on-page is identical to the one in iPad Pages - click on a spanner/wrench then on "Find...". It makes even less sense in other applications - "Find" is normally in the "Edit" menu, but finding is quite specifically about reading, not writing. So why in the Edit menu? It makes sense that 90% of people wouldn't be able to find it...
  - Flow 15y ago
    http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/971141 http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/971141 Not very obvious. I just can't remember this one.

perlgeek 15y ago

So what's your UI metaphor for Ctrl+f? My point is that software offers possibilities that go way beyond our real-life experience; there might not always exist a good real-world metaphor for all useful operations, at which point education becomes crucial.

gambler 15y ago
We don't need a metaphor. We simply need a "menu" that shows up when you're holding Ctrl that lists the possible continuations of the shortcut along with brief descriptions. I think being "intuitive" and being easily discoverable are not the same thing for UI, and designers pay too much attention to the former while ignoring the latter. For example, command line options for Unix programs are not intuitive at all, but they are very easy to discover via a standard mechanism that most system users are familiar with (man). Good interfaces communicate thing to the user. "Natural" interfaces only use things that have already been communicated or otherwise learned, which makes them much less flexible.
- Sniffnoy 15y ago
  We have the menu bar up top. The problem is people not knowing they can search, not that they don't know the shortcut for it. If people can't get it from the menu bar, I don't see how this would help.

arantius 15y ago

> Negatory. We need to improve our UI metaphors. In the case of finding something, holding down one key while pressing another has no parallel to real life searching. I rather strongly disagree. You're essentially saying: we should limiting the capabilities of tools (regardless of whether they are electronic or not) to things that already have a direct and obvious parallel to previously existing things that are wholly obvious. That essentially means: we should stop all progress. Absolutely not. Human beings are tool users, and tool _makers_. We make new tools to serve new problems. We learn how to use them. Via this mechanism, we advance.