
Of Modes and Men (2005) - sohkamyung
https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/of-modes-and-men
======
djrobstep
I wonder what Tesler thought about modern user interfaces in light of his "no
modes" philosophy.

Today, each program/website effectively functions as a separate "mode" where
everything potentially looks, behaves, and responds completely differently.
There's no consistency and it's a huge part of the reason computers are
frustrating to use for most people.

~~~
TuringTest
Bear in mind that the definition of "mode" includes a subjective part in its
definition, i.e. an interface is in a mode if the user thinks of the input in
a state as _the same action with different results_ than the same input on a
different state. [1] For example, single click on a web link navigates to a
new page, but single click on a desktop folder merely selects it.

But this does not necessarily applies to _content_. If you have two different
apps, with very different media and data (e.g. one is a spreadsheet, the other
a slide presentation), they don't represent different modes _if_ they respond
the same to the same actions. You may have a zoom button in both which works
the same, a similar color palette, similar scroll bars...

This is the reason why GUIs are composed with a small set of widgets, and
these represent standardised behaviours that work essentially the same across
all applications that use them (and also, this is why it's such a terrible
idea to build widgets that deviate from these expected behaviours). Tesla
should know, he was there when they invented them. [2]

You have a point that it's too easy to find applications that _don 't_ follow
the standards and reinvent the wheel for no benefit, and also that the
standards only extend to low-level interactions - before mobile OSs, there
never was a unified metaphor for reading, storing and sharing information at
the end-user space.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(user_interface)#Definiti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_\(user_interface\)#Definition)

[2]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20040511051426/https://computerh...](https://web.archive.org/web/20040511051426/https://computerhistory.org/events/lectures/appleint_10281997/appleint_xscript.shtml)

------
smolder
They say "it paved the way for the one-button mouse we use today" but most
people I know prefer two-or-more button mice, e.g. the classic scroll wheel
design. A single button makes the mouse hand much less useful.

~~~
chongli
That's only because the system was designed for two-or-more button mice. The
classic Mac OS was designed for a one-button mouse and it was far more
intuitive than what we use today. It was also much more discoverable, since it
didn't have modes, the thing Larry Tesler fought so hard against.

Right-mouse-button context menus are modes, since the functions you are shown
depend on what type of object you click on/have selected. The classic Mac OS
menu bar, on the other hand, is modeless since it always shows you the same
set of functions (and greys out the ones that are inapplicable to the selected
object). This is a tremendous boon to discoverability, a key feature of
usability.

~~~
smolder
I'm going to have to disagree, not that discoverability isn't good, but that
the addition button isn't worth the complexity.

It's a matter of expressiveness and bandwidth. You can do more pointer-related
actions with multiple buttons, and they aren't confusing the way keyboard
modes are, because you've got feedback on the display at the pointer location.
Primary clicks do the important thing, secondary clicks give you a set of
other options or an alternative action. It's very easy to pick up given its
universality and its usefulness. A single button just requires you to press
mode keys with the other hand to get that expressiveness needed in a
reasonably intuitive, and powerful, pointer-driven UI.

Imagine if we didn't have multitouch and the only gestures we had on touch
displays were tap, tap and hold, drag...

~~~
chongli
I think it's fair to say that everyone on Hacker News is a power user of their
computer. Power users do not really know what it's like to be a regular user
who is confused by multi-button mice, context menus, and all the rest. Try
getting an older person to use a modern computer. They're completely baffled
by all of the complexity. They don't know (and don't care) why they should be
left-clicking in some cases and right-clicking in others. They prefer an iPad
and generally don't use the multitouch gestures, besides pinch/spread for
zoom. Simple taps and drags are highly intuitive for them.

I would argue that context menus are inferior to keyboard shortcuts anyway. I
certainly don't use them once I learn the keyboard shortcuts. I believe we
have truly lost something special, since the classic Mac OS is no longer with
us. We don't even organize our computers spatially anymore [1], we just rely
on search all the time. That's a terrible shame, as spatial memory is the
fastest. When you walk into a room in your home, you don't even need to look
at the light switch, you just flick it on because you remember exactly where
it is.

Modern computers with all of their context sensitivity, browser windows, etc.
are like a house where the light switches keep moving around to try to guess
where you'll be next.

[1] [https://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/4q00/macosx-
pb1/maco...](https://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/4q00/macosx-pb1/macos-x-
beta-14.html)

------
creeble
Modes generally suck, but are often either unavoidable or better than the
alternatives.

For example, every graphics program has a "mode" for creating e.g., curves,
whereas the "default mode" is selecting. This is very much a mode, but it is
clearly indicated to the user by (typically) a change in cursor shape. It's
still a mode (affects what clicks of the mouse do), but it's tolerable because
it is directly entered (by selecting an icon to enter the mode), and feedback
is relatively clear.

There are modes, and then there are modes.

------
cmroanirgo
I must remember this article the next time some Vim fanboi tries to mansplain
to me why vim is better. (Note _most_ seasoned vim users are not in this
category... But will happily press an emacs user, which I'm not either). I've
heard it all before and even done the side by side comparison tests... >15yrs
ago.

Ultimately, the results of Larry Tesler tests coincides with my own.

Thankyou Mr Tesler for No Modes editors!

~~~
polyphonicist
Actual quote from the article for context:

> Modeless: Computer scientists when writing code typically worked in
> different modes; you might have an insert mode, a delete mode, or a replace
> mode. You would first select the mode, then select the point on the screen
> at which the action was to occur, then perform the action. Tesler, in user
> experiments, proved that modes were confusing for nonscientific users and
> championed the “modeless” interface.

For non-technical users, sure modeless editing may be better. But for computer
scientists, modeful editing may be better. The article mentions modeless
editing to be better for no scientific users only, not necessarily for
everyone.

~~~
TuringTest
_> But for computer scientists, modeful editing may be better. The article
mentions modeless editing to be better for no scientific users only, not
necessarily for everyone._

That's why they kept on investigating, and concluded that modes are bad for
anyone; as long as they are human, using modes increase their rates of error.
Jef Raskin went so far as to invent _quasimodes_ , to get the benefits of
modal interfaces without the burden on short-term memory.
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(user_interface)#Quasimod...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_\(user_interface\)#Quasimodes))

~~~
lonelappde
Calling people inhuman is obnoxious; please don't do that.

Quasimodes (chording) are physically difficult and distracting.

