

WIMP UI paradigm won't scale down to touch UIs - dirtyaura
http://www.russellbeattie.com/blog/the-end-of-wimp-and-the-rise-of-touch

======
dirtyaura
It's a rather long article, but has good observations by someone who has tried
different tablet OSes.

I personally believe that we are on the verge of a fundamental shift in
computer UIs. And it starts by scaling up from a simpler solution (e.g. iOS
UI, Android, Meego), not by scaling down from a more complex solution
(traditional desktop UIs).

Now the interesting question is that when we need to support a lot of
different kinds of actions/tasks in an application, how will this be supported
in touch UIs. Russ mentioned Photoshop as a good example of such application.

In our upcoming iPhone game, we have played around with circular context menus
and at least in that setting they seem to be quite promising. However, you can
really only have a few choices (4-5) in circular context menu on iPhone.
However, on iPad or tablet, you could have several "rings" of actions.
Traditionally, in mouse-based systems, circular context menus haven't have
several rings because of the Fitts' law, but on the touch based system, I
don't see that as a problem.

Any thoughts of possible directions, where touch UIs will evolve?

~~~
dieterrams
The problem with circular menus comes down to limited choices (as you pointed
out), and the simple fact that it's difficult to read a circular menu. They
will work best when the choices are adequately represented by an icon or
single word, the choices are hierarchically flat (no drilling through
submenus), and when the menu is accessed so frequently that the user can
quickly map those choices to muscle memory.* Outside of these conditions, they
don't work so well, because their advantages in terms of Fitts' law are
greatly outweighed by their lack of readability. Unfortunately a "rings"
system would only exacerbate that.

* A circular menu is also especially good if there's some natural mapping between the choices and a circular layout, like choosing a compass direction.

~~~
dirtyaura
Good points, especially the case for readability, i.e. the need for either a
good iconic representation or a short word. In our game setting, there has
been so far a good iconic match with a short word (e.g. buildings that you
build to the specified position), but I can see that this will be a big
problem in a more abstract cases.

I don't see scrollable list-like context menus (as suggested in an another
comment) very good either, it seems to work against the benefits of touch UI.
Maybe I need to play with Android first to be convinced.

Now that I think, Photoshop-style 'temporarily' modal actions picked from
toolbar could be actually a good pick for a multi-touch UI. In mouse-based
systems, frequently switching between tools can be really cumbersome (without
keyboard shortcuts), but in multitouch systems it could actually work quite
well.

------
awa
I dont know whether he installed the Microsoft Multi touch pack.

[http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/windows7/archive/2009/0...](http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/windows7/archive/2009/05/27/introducing-
the-microsoft-touch-pack-for-windows-7.aspx)

[http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b15...](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b152fadd-82e4-4ddb-a46a-aebe49944428&displaylang=en)

~~~
russellbeattie
I did - but the IdeaPad only has an Atom processor, so the apps ran _really_
sluggishly - also, it doesn't add any multitouch additions to the main Windows
UI that I noticed. That said, I didn't realize MS had released the Surface
stuff, so it was still fun to play with.

-Russ

------
dman
One of the beefs I have with current touch solutions is that they require me
to move my hand a lot. I set my mice to high sensitivity and then just do
things with tiny movements. Most current touch UIs have a 1:1 mapping between
screen movement and finger movement, I keep wishing someone implements a
microflick based UI where users have to make tiny movements.

~~~
Qz
I'm the same way. Honestly I don't think the current WIMP paradigm works that
well for desktops either.

~~~
andybak
I agree. Maybe desktop-style UI's are dead for - well - desktops, too?

What are the pain points in desktop UI's for touch devices? 1\. Drag and Drop
- many inexperienced users find drag and drop difficult so killing it wouldn't
harm anyone. It always was a bitch with overlapping windows anyway.

2\. Managing overlapping windows in general just sucks. I've often argued that
tiling windows are a much better idea and these could be made to work on touch
devices with larger screens too.

3\. Scrollbars are useless on touch-devices and not much fun on the desktop.
Luckily touchpad scrolling and mouse-wheels mean I don't have to use them much
so maybe they can die too.

4\. 'Hover' type interactions are usually inessential. and when they aren't
it's usually a sign that something is horribly wrong with the UX

Maybe even with touchpad/mouse/keyboard, the changes made necessary by touch
devices might force desktop UI's to shed some of their weaker aspects.

Another thing to think about is the '10 foot interface'. This suffers similar
limitations to touchscreens and with Google TV and similar products spreading
their influence, the remote control could become the most commonly used input
device of all.

~~~
chc
Points 1 and 2 are solved (at least on OS X) to a degree where I would be
annoyed if those things were taken away.

~~~
andybak
How so? Last time I checked 'drag and drop' was still the primary method of
file management in Finder and Apple hasn't added a tiling window manager.

~~~
chc
Yes, drag and drop is widely used in OS X and it works very well. Your windows
aren't tiled all the time, but Expose puts them into a tiled structure, and it
works with drag-and-drop. So I can have all the windows open I want, in
whatever configuration I want, start dragging something, enter Expose, and
drop it wherever I want.

