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Brilliant. Really. This article expresses perfectly everything that is wrong with Wolfram Alpha (which still can't tell me how much an elephant weighs, no matt

Brilliant. Really. This article expresses perfectly everything that is wrong with Wolfram Alpha (which still can't tell me how much an elephant weighs, no matter how many ways I ask it). There are so many stories of users doing ridiculous things because of such hubristic user interfaces. Hang out with non-hackers long enough and you will clearly see how "they create an incomplete model of the giant electronic brain in their own, non-giant, non-electronic brains." Also, the phrase "non-solution to a non-problem" is the best thing I've read all week.

adamc 17y ago
Pretty much agree that it is a brilliant dissection of why WA has the wrong interface for its real market. The people who nominally need its interface don't want it, and it doesn't work very well at that level anyhow. The folks who would use it with a more direct interface are likely to become very frustrated with it. Casting it as a "false affordance" was well done as well.
fhars 17y ago
And it still can't even calculate: http://www07.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+attoparsec+%2F+millifortnight http://www07.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+attoparsec+%2F+mill...
- amohr 17y ago
  Actually, with unit conversions, the solution is often parenthesis. http://www07.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+attoparsec+%2F+%28millifortnight%29 http://www07.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+attoparsec+%2F+%28m... totally works
  - fhars 17y ago
    This was the point of the article. The natural language query interface doesn't work, the user has to divine the interpretation the system will ascribe to his query.
troystribling 17y ago
"non-solution to a non-problem" reminds me of a similar quote by James May on Top Gear, "a brilliant solution to a problem that should never have existed"
- iamwil 17y ago
  What if WA had NBA stats? How about prices of similar cameras over time? Would the same stupid people want visualizations for that? I wonder if that would that then turn it into a "non-solution to a problem"?
  - scott_s 17y ago
    The author's point is that the users know they want, say, NBA stats, or price comparisons, so they should be able to ask for those.
    - iamwil 17y ago
      Right. That much I got. The part about "non-solution to a non-problem" refers how the author thought that not only is the interface a non-solution, but that having datasets and visualizations would be useless to lay people (a non-problem). I was asking the question whether it's really a non-problem. I figured that a nutritional label is a bad example, and that if WA had sports stats or product comparison data, the lay person might be very interesting, hence upgrading WA to a "non-solution to a problem"
      - ori_b 17y ago
        I gathered that the "non-problem" that was being discussed was the need for natural language input, not the actual visualization.
GavinB 17y ago
http://www82.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weight+of+an+indian+elephant http://www82.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weight+of+an+indian+e... "weight of a" always seems to trigger the weight query. The problem is that it doesn't have general data for "elephant" and doesn't know to link it to "indian elephant." It would be a lot easier if you could just browse the data. They could really have just used a good online retailer "drill-down" style interface ala newegg to make this easier.
- jimbokun 17y ago
  Seems to indicate the need for a search interface, which was hinted at by the article. Maybe the tool selection could happen after the initial query? The results from the default tool guessed by WA, then choices of other possible matches. The key word "weight" could suggest the weight query, then key word match "elephant" to give choices like Indian elephant, African elephant, etc. and allow the user to click which one she had in mind. Maybe some keyword matches for elephant from other databases listed after that. The problem, though, is they don't have the amount of data Google can use to help predict what a user most likely wants from a given query.

adamc 17y ago

Pretty much agree that it is a brilliant dissection of why WA has the wrong interface for its real market. The people who nominally need its interface don't want it, and it doesn't work very well at that level anyhow. The folks who would use it with a more direct interface are likely to become very frustrated with it. Casting it as a "false affordance" was well done as well.

fhars 17y ago

And it still can't even calculate: http://www07.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+attoparsec+%2F+millifortnight http://www07.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+attoparsec+%2F+mill...

amohr 17y ago
Actually, with unit conversions, the solution is often parenthesis. http://www07.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+attoparsec+%2F+%28millifortnight%29 http://www07.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+attoparsec+%2F+%28m... totally works
- fhars 17y ago
  This was the point of the article. The natural language query interface doesn't work, the user has to divine the interpretation the system will ascribe to his query.

troystribling 17y ago

"non-solution to a non-problem" reminds me of a similar quote by James May on Top Gear, "a brilliant solution to a problem that should never have existed"

iamwil 17y ago
What if WA had NBA stats? How about prices of similar cameras over time? Would the same stupid people want visualizations for that? I wonder if that would that then turn it into a "non-solution to a problem"?
- scott_s 17y ago
  The author's point is that the users know they want, say, NBA stats, or price comparisons, so they should be able to ask for those.
  - iamwil 17y ago
    Right. That much I got. The part about "non-solution to a non-problem" refers how the author thought that not only is the interface a non-solution, but that having datasets and visualizations would be useless to lay people (a non-problem). I was asking the question whether it's really a non-problem. I figured that a nutritional label is a bad example, and that if WA had sports stats or product comparison data, the lay person might be very interesting, hence upgrading WA to a "non-solution to a problem"
    - ori_b 17y ago
      I gathered that the "non-problem" that was being discussed was the need for natural language input, not the actual visualization.

GavinB 17y ago

http://www82.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weight+of+an+indian+elephant http://www82.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weight+of+an+indian+e... "weight of a" always seems to trigger the weight query. The problem is that it doesn't have general data for "elephant" and doesn't know to link it to "indian elephant." It would be a lot easier if you could just browse the data. They could really have just used a good online retailer "drill-down" style interface ala newegg to make this easier.

jimbokun 17y ago
Seems to indicate the need for a search interface, which was hinted at by the article. Maybe the tool selection could happen after the initial query? The results from the default tool guessed by WA, then choices of other possible matches. The key word "weight" could suggest the weight query, then key word match "elephant" to give choices like Indian elephant, African elephant, etc. and allow the user to click which one she had in mind. Maybe some keyword matches for elephant from other databases listed after that. The problem, though, is they don't have the amount of data Google can use to help predict what a user most likely wants from a given query.