

Avoiding The Uncanny Valley of User Interface - blackswan
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000869.html

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swombat
Hmm, another exaggeration from Jeff Atwood. He's getting good at these.

In my experience the metaphor doesn't stretch to RIAs. My start-up's main
application is precisely one of those "RIA that pretends to behave like a
desktop app", and thanks to Flex we've been able to get a good enough
approximation. Result? Our users don't feel uncomfortable about it (although
we have had the odd user who seemed to expect that everything would be instant
even though it was a web-app). On the contrary, our users love it, and have
commented on it positively many times.

I guess people care less about that last 1% when looking at a web application
than when looking at a humanoid robot. Which means stretching the metaphor in
this direction doesn't quite work.

~~~
lbrandy
Sure it's an exaggeration. The uncanny valley is a visceral biological
reaction in parts of our brains that have spent millions of years become very
finely tuned to identifying human beings. We have no such location for user
interface. That said, I think there is still something to be said for the
concept. If you are trying to mimic something, and get it 99% of the way
there, that last 1% _can_ be source of frustration. (Jeff goes on to say
because it _can_ be, it therefore is a bad idea, and you shouldn't do it. This
is a poorly supported conclusion.)

For example, stupid cnnsi.com has a "main window" that has some things at the
bottom that look, feel, and act like links. Yet I cannot middle click them to
open them in a new tab. This annoys the bejesus out of me. Another example is
desktop-emulating applications who don't have a fully-functional right-click
menu like I'd expect.

By emulating other things, you put expectations into your user's mind about
what sorts of functionality it should have. In this respect, it is analogous
to the uncanny valley. The mimicry alone has created expectations that can
cause frustration. But, that doesn't mean, that mimic'ing is inherently wrong
or bad. It just means you have to do it right. You have to meet those user's
new expectations.

~~~
stcredzero
So basically, Jeff's just saying, "If you look like X, you've just set all the
expectations of expectations X. You'd better meet them. Oh, and BTW it's just
like this other concept that got on the front page of reddit!"

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axod
I think the worst thing you can do as a webapp is start with emulating the O/S
- dragable, resizable, minimizable emulated windows and dialogs.

I hate the idea of having "emulated" windows within a single browser window.
It looks messy and confused.

So on that sort of point I agree. I'm not sure what other examples there are
though.

~~~
Shamiq
But wouldn't it be awesome to drag a window generated within a webapp and toss
it some place onto your desktop? (to the degree that the browser is just an
extension of the OS -- kinda like a file explorer with more features)

~~~
ph0rque
Yup... or being able to upload an image into a rich text editor by dragging it
from your desktop or other folder.

~~~
Shamiq
It's these kind of intuitive things that I love. The only problem is being
able to guess what is intuitive to whom. Else you'll end up with a ton of
features that no one ever uses (read: waste of money).

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12ren
Abstracting (too much), it's violated expectations - like broken promises,
people _really_ don't like it.

Taking a tangential step, computer automation is similar when it purports to
be able to help you, but doesn't understand you well enough to do so; like
MS's "clippy".

In contrast, Google's "I'm feeling lucky" button is automation that fulfills
its promise (though the name emphases that luck is involved). Google can
predict so well what I want, that this button is (very often) right. An
awesome achievement. I added a simple command-line google lookup, to go
directly to the page, and it's freaking me out how well it works:

    
    
        > cat ~/bin/g
        firefox google.com/search?q="$*"\&btnI= &

~~~
tlrobinson
Neat idea. Here's one way on OS X:

    
    
        open "http://google.com/search?q="$*"\&btnI="
    

Or if you want to specify a non-default browser:

    
    
        open -a "Safari.app" "http://google.com/search?q="$*"\&btnI="

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patio11
The part about web apps -- meh. The part about gobsmackingly good imitation
human animation: cool.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLiX5d3rC6o&fmt=18](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLiX5d3rC6o&fmt=18)

Two years from now we'll be seeing that, or not seeing it as the case may be,
in movies. Another two years after that it will be in the AAA video games with
9 figure budgets. And another two years after that you'll be able to do it
from a Japanese cell phone.

God I love technology.

~~~
mleonhard
That video creeped me out a bit. :o

------
tstegart
I don't think the Uncanny Valley can exist with regards to user interfaces.
They were created from scratch. And they've changed, and are still changing.
And neither a desktop interface nor a web interface is set in stone.

See, the valley can exist because humans stay the same, at least to our
brains. We don't madly change form or shape every 20 years. But user
interfaces do. So how do our brains know a web interface looks too much like a
desktop interface? It can only know because we know what both are "supposed"
to look like.

But kids being brought up on web interfaces that look like desktops will not
have a valley because to them that looks normal. There is no set "desktop"
look or web interface "look." Its only what we've created. Create something
different, and the valley will go away.

~~~
donw
Depending on your client audience, user interfaces might not change enough for
them to really feel too comfortable switching -- for example, if even the
_theme_ of my father's Windows installation changes, he has a lot of problems
getting work done.

If you have a web app that _looks_ identical to a Windows/OS X desktop app,
but behaves oddly, it will irritate your customers in subtle but significant
ways.

~~~
tstegart
But isn't that an expectation problem? It doesn't behave as expected. But
visually, it could have looked like anything. As long as the second thing
looks exactly like the first but behaves differently, it will be irritating.
But the first thing can look like anything you want and it'll never be
annoying, unless it too looks like something else. Plus, someone who gets
introduced to the second interface first will have that interface become their
reference point.

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mleonhard
Maybe this explains why I hate using OpenOffice and other copy-cat software?

~~~
gb
Office already had a pretty poor interface, so maybe it's more to do with
that?

I was pretty disappointed they didn't try anything different, but I guess the
aim of that was to attract people who actually like Office in the first place.

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jfarmer
Eh, there's something to be said about web applications and the Uncanny
Valley, but this isn't it.

Atwood, I think, is saying that web applications shouldn't be like desktop
applications because it violates the user's expectation of how a webapp should
be.

Applying the Uncanny Valley to this says that it's not bad for web apps to
behave like desktop apps -- it's bad for webapps to signal that they have
behave like desktop apps, and then fail to live up to that expectation.

This problem affects other products, too. For example, imagine a really
awesome semantic search engine called CantorSet. You can throw all sorts of
questions at it and it appears to come up with the answer. "What did Bush say
at the last G8 meeting?" Wow! Amazing!

But then you ask questions like, "Why did my wife leave me?" No answer! Wow,
this thing sucks.

It's less about what the webapp does or doesn't do, and more about the
expectations it sets and whether or not it lives up to them.

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gstar
Cappuccino is squarely in the "Uncanny Valley" according to Atwood, but I
disagree with his analysis.

If you look at 280 slides, it doesn't behave quite like a mac, but it's still
intuitive. People understand the WIMP.

I think he's conflating crappy Swing java apps with webapp UX.

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far33d
[http://far33d.tumblr.com/post/30017717/on-the-polar-
express-...](http://far33d.tumblr.com/post/30017717/on-the-polar-express-to-
the-uncanny-valley)

I guess I should write more frequently and more in depth.

------
eli_s
There's a big difference between web app and web page. Common web app controls
(accordion, tab panels etc) allow developers to convey lots more information
on screen and well thought out use of AJAX can make a complex application
perform more quickly than the static equivalent.

As the complexity of web apps increases users will need to get used to the
idea that they need to learn how to use each app to get the most out of it
which is how it works with desktop apps. Try to compare the UI between desktop
apps such as a music editor, 3DSMax and MSWord. Each uses different UI
controls (sliders, knobs, text input etc). Each app is complex and has an
associated learning curve. If people consider the app useful they will invest
the time in learning how to use it.

I recently had to learn how to use Aftereffects. The UI and work flow were
completely foreign to me - none of my existing knowledge was transferable, but
I learned how to use it because I needed the features it provided.

Ultimately the market will decide. My guess is that the line between desktop
and browser will continue to blur and will one day disappear.

