Some thoughts on simple user interfaces versus simplistic (and complex) ones

[liam_on_linux]

[A chap on a mailing list I'm on talked about being unable to find the "Shutdown" option on Windows 8, and how while he and a friend couldn't work out how to "use Twitter" in over half an hour, his mother worked it out in five minutes.]

I've fallen victim to the "trying to be too clever" PEBCAK error myself, a good few times.

(E.g. I spent ages trying to work out the command to tell my first Apple Newton to shut down. Eventually I consulted the manual. Press the on/off button, it said. I think I actually blushed.)

I tried to learn from it. I don't always win.

Shutdown options are like a "sleep" option on a notebook. You don't need one. Just close the lid.

Sure, provide an option to turn this off, for instance if you want to be able to use the machine with its lid shut - but most people don't need it.

But working something out in 5min when two techies together couldn't find it in half an hour - I think that that says something really quite profound, actually.

There is a new model of human-computer interaction evolving, right now, today, in the world of phones and tablets. It's more direct, less mediated. Instead of right-clicking and double-clicking and rooting through menus, it's direct: press here, then press here, then press here.

Occasionally, press and hold or press and drag, but it's an important element that people need not find that - that they can do everything without it.

(This latter aspect is directly parallel to using a multibutton mouse on a classic Mac. My G/F about 2005 had a Blue & White G3 with Mac OS 9 on it, and a replacement mouse - a Logitech USB wheelmouse. She explained to me that it was a PC mouse from the local PC superstore, as hers died, and because it was a PC mouse, the right button and wheel didn't work, because they didn't on Macs.

Yes they do, I said.

No they don't, she said.

So I checked. They didn't. No Logitech driver installed. So I downloaded it and installed it and showed her. Took 5min. Yes, they do, I said. Look, empty the bin with a right-click. Scroll through Finder windows or web pages with the wheel.

She loved the wheel, and constantly forgot the right mouse button. That's what years of Mac use do to you. ;¬)

But the thing is, the OS did support right-clicks. Not super-widely, but they were there. If you didn't have a right mouse button, if you had a single-button Apple mouse, then you could get at right-click functionality by just holding down Ctrl and left-clicking. Worked fine. Being used to having a RMB, I used it all the time, to occasional deep befuddlement of Mac users I was supporting. Sometimes, it's the quickest, easiest way to do stuff.)

But, on late-era classic MacOS and on iOS, you don't need to know this stuff. You can do everything without it.

This is something Windows tended to miss and which today Android sometimes misses. You have to cater for the users who only want the simplest, most basic interaction modes. On Windows, some things are quite hard to accomplish unless you right-click.

Using Acorn RISC OS without middle and right clicks was impossible. You needed them. Then I started working with Macs and thoroughly learned a GUI which removed that small complexity.

To this day, I still occasionally have arguments with RISC OS users who maintain that the Acorn was is unequivocally better.

Well, it isn't. I'm sorry, but it's not. Easier is better. Simpler is better. So long as it doesn't limit you. That's the key thing there in the rider. PC products have all too often had a "simple mode" and a "full mode" as a concession to ease of use or unskilled users. That's better than nothing, but it is a crutch and it is inferior. Make 'em able to do everything they want with the simplest interactions.

I know iPhone users - skilled ones, very fast, with hundreds of apps - who didn't know about holding down icons to remove stuff, or double-pressing Home to access the recently-used-apps list.

But they did not need to know.

That is how good UIs are done. Offer extras, but don't demand them.

Converse example: I had a chap on Google+ criticize Ubuntu's Unity desktop because, he said, you can't open a second copy of an app, all you can do is switch to it and press Ctrl-N for a New window - if that app supports that.

Did you read the help screen, I asked. What help screen, he said.

Ah. Well, you middle-click, I said.

Oh! He goes. Well I gave up on Unity because you couldn't do stuff like that.

So he could not do all he needed to, and got frustrated, and blamed the product.

Actually, the product has the feature he needed, but he didn't go looking for it.

Now, granted, that is a failure of design, but it's not the failure of design he thought it was. He thought the feature was missing (which is silly). It wasn't, but it was hidden behind an action that it didn't occur to him to try, and he didn't go looking.

Either way, though, still a failure.

Back to Windows 8. :¬)

The thing is, coming to a touch style interface from a desktop WIMP, traditional PC users seem to get very frustrated, and even smart people don't think of Googling an answer. I find that very odd.

But more naïve users, without the burden of expectation, find their way around simpler interfaces like the iPhone and iPad with considerable aplomb, and soon, it seems second nature to them.

Well, the thing is, and I speak as someone who's worked in support for a quarter-century, even most PC users don't really understand how to work a desktop WIMP. Even people who use one 8+ hours a day for years on end.

And there are several *billion* more potential users out there who don't know how to use a desktop WIMP than all those who do know put together.

And if you use commercial OSes, then their vendors are going to follow the money. And that might well mean we lose our desktops and get glorified iPads.

Those of us who use FOSS OSes are all right, of course. At least for now. At least as long as someone still wants to maintain the code.

But I think it will prove to be like the DOS-to-Windows transition all over again. Those who love the old way will moan and grouch and complain, then gradually, they'll discover that actually, they get used to the new way, and after a while, hell, that they quite like it.

And gradually, most of 'em will move across.

And then there won't be anyone maintaining the FOSS desktops and they will fade away.

It's like Max Planck said:

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”