
Overdoing the interface metaphor - swombat
http://www.marco.org/441168915
======
nevinera
He's missing the point. That calculator app isn't there for _him_ , it's there
for new users.

If you sit down at a computer for the first time, and need to do a
calculation, you want something that behaves exactly like you're used to - a
calculator that works just like the one in your desk, a painting program that
works as much like a set of paints and brushes as can be managed.

That's not 'overdoing the interface metaphor', it's being _faithful to
expectations_. Sure, there's a better interface for the calculator available,
but people that would want one generally know how to install one.

The Java interface metaphor is a telling one: an interface is a promise to the
user. Changing the interface forces the user to change as well, and people
seldom want to.

~~~
Raphael_Amiard
By following this way of thinking, the designer of the first calculator should
have made his product look as much like an abacus as possible, so he wouldn't
confuse the new user.

What you're saying is reasonable, but it misses the fact that you have to find
a balance between being familiar and exposing the capabilities of the software
you're using.

The calculator is a good example, because it's actually very painful to use
such a calculator on a computer. And saying new users can't grasp the way a
proper computer calculator works mean you didn't try hard enough to explain to
them. It's really taking the easy road.

On a side note, i always wondered why we don't see the same kind of
walkthrough you have got in many videogames in software. There should be an
interactive walkthrough mode in every packed application in windows/osx. It
would be a much better solution than trying to mimic real world objects by
providing an interface that imperfectly behaves like the users preconceptions
make him expect.

~~~
nevinera
>first calculator should have made his product look as much like an abacus as
possible, so he wouldn't confuse the new user.

No, he should have made it look as much like a calculation sheet as possible,
and he did (calculators were made for accountants initially). The point was
that you should use the interface your user expects, unless you are attempting
to fill a demand that hasn't been met.

>And saying new users can't grasp the way a proper computer calculator works
mean you didn't try hard enough to explain to them. It's really taking the
easy road.

It's not. Saying new users 'cant' grasp it would be insulting - it would be
much more accurate to say that they don't have the inclination to. If I'm
going to use a tool once per month on average, then a slow, clunky interface
is far superior to a faster one that I don't know how to use yet.

>There should be an interactive walkthrough mode in every packed application
in windows/osx.

That would be useful in a lot of cases, and we're starting to see more of them
now that producing video isn't so damned difficult. But they still take time
and effort to read; they still make demands on the user.

>it's actually very painful to use such a calculator on a computer.

'Painful' is a perception. It's painful to you, because you're used to
something else - it is blessedly familiar to my grandfather; it was the only
thing I showed him that didn't need explanation.

~~~
Raphael_Amiard
> 'Painful' is a perception. It's painful to you, because you're used to
> something else - it is blessedly familiar to my grandfather; it was the only
> thing I showed him that didn't need explanation.

Well no i was not talking about the perception. Even your or mine grandfather
would agree that an actual calculator is better than the calculator you have
in windows, because you have real keys instead of drawed ones. And if you
start using the ones on your keyboard, which actually makes much more sense,
the drawed ones become useless suddenly. The workflow you have with one of
those fakes calculators is not only worse than with a well designed one, it's
way worse than with a real one, and that's the whole point.

> If I'm going to use a tool once per month on average, then a slow, clunky
> interface is far superior to a faster one that I don't know how to use yet.

This deserves to be quoted because it's very true, but i still think, in the
case of the calculator, and maybe in the case of other apps, that a way better
compromise could be made.

------
raganwald
> As an interface designer I am often asked to design a “better” interface to
> some product. Usually one can be designed such that, in terms of learning
> time, eventual speed of operation (productivity), decreased error rates, and
> ease of implementation it is superior to competing or the client’s own
> products. Even where my proposals are seen as significant improvements, they
> are often rejected nonetheless on the grounds that they are not intuitive.

> It is a classic “catch 22.” The client wants something that is significantly
> superior to the competition. But if superior, it cannot be the same, so it
> must be different (typically the greater the improvement, the greater the
> difference). Therefore it cannot be intuitive, that is, familiar. What the
> client usually wants is an interface with at most marginal differences that,
> somehow, makes a major improvement. This can be achieved only on the rare
> occasions where the original interface has some major flaw that is remedied
> by a minor fix.

\--Jef Raskin

------
camtarn
Amusingly, the interface Marco points out as not having any real-world
equivalent is actually fairly close (barring lack of keypad) to what my Casio
scientific calculator does - calculation history, variable references, editing
and all. The inability of most bundled calculator applications to live up to a
£15 pocket calculator has been a source of frustration for me for quite some
time - it's not that the calculators fail by replicating a real-world object;
it's that they fail by not replicating the _right_ one :)

------
replicatorblog
It is funny, when injection molded plastics were first introduced, companies
tried to make them replicate the look of knotty pine wood. Then some Italian
designers got to them and showed off the intrinsic beauty of plastic (organic
forms, translucence) paving the way for designs like the iMac. Seems like the
same thing is happening with iPlatform apps.

I think the super literal interface metaphor is a symptom of people responding
to polished aesthetics. For years designers have had to work in the handcuffs
of cross browser compliance, small file sizes, and as a result most sites look
boring.

Along comes the iPhone with these little app confections that are:

\- single purpose: so they don't need cluttered nav and work really well

\- replicating physical objects: so the metaphors generally make sense opposed
to say a tag cloud

\- Were made by Mac enthusiasts: Who tend to make really nice looking stuff

Now a lot of folks are thinking that the key to good apps is making it look
like/replicate some real world object. While this is part of these apps appeal
it is just one layer.

I think if the delicious monster/panic/icon factory teams got a hold of the
calculator he was holding up as a great design it would be far more popular.
It looks impressive functionally and he is right that we shouldn't be beholden
to old technical constraints. It is just a boring from a UI/Eye candy POV
which is important in a retail world.

------
bobbyi
His preferred calculator seems fairly close to using ipython which is what I
would do.

~~~
scott_s
I use a python REPL as my calculator. I went through many different apps until
it hit me that was what I wanted.

~~~
bobbyi
The main thing the calculator program seems to have over python is easy unit
conversions.

Also, I have to admit that python 2's default behavior regarding integer
division is not what one expects from a calculator (I expect 3/2 = 1.5).

~~~
thegoleffect
Instacalc.com might be closer to what you want.

~~~
kylemathews
I ran across instacalc.com when looking for linux equivalents of soulver --
very nice web app.

~~~
kalid
Awesome, glad you're enjoying it!

------
ugh
You need to be used to typing formulas into a computer (^ and sqrt and so on)
to use the non-physical calculator. Most people aren’t. Sure, it’s easy enough
to learn, but the average user opens his OS calculator probably only a few
times a year. He gets what he is used to and that’s probably a good idea. Slow
to work with but no learning required.

If you need a calculator regularly you should probably get something
different. You wouldn’t write a novel with TextEdit or WordPad.

By the way, there is a much better way to do quick and dirty calculations
which doesn’t require you to fire up the Calculator. Try Spotlight. And not
just simple arithmetic. Try sqrt(2) or e^2 or sin(pi/2). Good enough for my
very occasional calculatory needs. So, in a way, OS X offers best of both
worlds, but some bells and whistles (which you might not need anyway) may be
missing.

~~~
edj
Spotlight failed on e^2...

Pretty cool, though. I've long known about Spotlight's dictionary definitions,
but had no idea it could perform calculations.

~~~
camwest
It didn't fail for me. And +1 for spotlight calculator. It's SO fast and
always there.

------
protomyth
Looking at his preferred calculator, I really see no visual cues of what
functions are supported. Is it a simple calculator or does it do complex
formulas. The normal OS X calculator acts like the physical object and gives
the clues of a physical object. This is not to say I think the translation of
a physical object is the best solution, but I really think that some better
visual hints need to be given then just a blank document for new users.

The page turning Apple built seems to me the right way to go because it is
simple gesture we grasp instinctively, the content is paged, and it looks
good.

We can do so much better then physical objects on computers (look at the
interface to many puzzle games), but it really needs to assist the new users
and get out of the way of the old.

~~~
Hexstream
"Looking at emacs, I really see no visual cues of what functions are
supported..."

~~~
arethuza
Don't you think that is a good thing?

~~~
Hexstream
Yes, it's a very good thing.

Guys, I'm an emacs lover. I was just trying to nullify the argument against
Soulver that the parent brought up by making an analogy to emacs which also
has most of the functionnality hidden and yet is super great.

------
kalid
When making instacalc I had some of the same issues -- why do we emulate the
existing calculator with its limitations?

I feel spreadsheets are the other extreme of interface overload -- way too
much power. There's nothing in between (you get 1 editable field with
calc.exe, and hundreds of thousands in Excel).

In my own usage I want to optimize the 90% use case, like an interactive "back
of the envelope":

* Real-time editing & results

* Show the few calculations I care about at once (both question and answer)

* Ignore gritty programming details (does variable case matter? Do _spaces_ matter? Why can't a name be "net sales = 3")

* Make difficult conversions easy ("15 cows/day in minutes per cow").

There's always tradeoffs between familiarity & forging a new direction.

~~~
Groxx
Spreadsheets strike me as way too much _abstraction_ , rather than power. Both
for most users, however. They're also generally quite poor abstraction, IMO,
as relational connections are often very hard to show without being way over
the average proficient user's skill level, and spending a lot more time
creating a pretty display sheet rather than leaving it all in rows & columns.

That said, a lot of that is because people abuse Excel _horribly_ , to do
everything and wash the dishes and walk the dog.

------
shrikant
I just use the Google search-bar up over there on the right.

~~~
LiveTheDream
The Google search bar is an excellent calculator, because it understands words
too. You can do "50 million * 3%" and it will answer "one million five hundred
thousand". That's easier to interpret than a whole bunch of zeros. It also
interprets units "20 mph * 3 hours" = "96.56064 kilometers". "20 mph * 3 hours
as miles" = "60 miles". Also the auto-suggest feature completes calculations
so you don't even need to hit enter.

~~~
bockris
Instacalc is another good one.

<http://instacalc.com/>

~~~
LiveTheDream
Nice. I just turned it into a stand-alone app with Prism; now I have Soulver
but free (and dependent on an internet connection). The bookmarklet is also
really handy.

~~~
kalid
Thanks! Glad you're finding it useful... I've contemplated turning it into a
desktop app also.

------
ccc3
The only reason I can think of to make an interface that mimics a physical
object is that the new interface is more likely to be instantly recognizable
and intuitive to a user looking at it for the first time. In this case you're
designing the interface to work best for a new user, which generally means it
won't work as well for an advanced user. I would guess that designers of basic
calculator apps, like the example in the post, are designing for the new or
occasional user and assume that anyone doing lots of calculations will move on
to something more efficient.

The problem with extending physical mimicry to more complex software is that
the interface ends up adopting design compromises made for the physical world.
I remember the idea of a "virtual shopping mall" where you would virtually
walk through the mall, look around and pick a store to go into. But a shopping
mall has to be a certain size because it has to hold a certain amount of
stuff. It takes time to walk from one end of a mall to the other, but there's
no reason to extend that compromise (made to gain physical space) should ever
be made in software. For anything beyond a very simple application you're
better off asking the user to learn a few things about how the software works
and designing the interface for its medium.

------
martythemaniak
Slightly off topic, but I find the Python REPL to be the best calculator out
there.

~~~
pre
I never stopped using bc. Why you'd want one of those things with GUI buttons
I dunno.

------
jasonkester
Whenever I see a little Mac app that's apparently quite popular and has a
price attached, I can't help wondering why nobody releases a Windows version
with the same price tag.

Proven market + 20x customer base = potential success?

Note to whoever jumps on this: Do it with Omnigraffle first. I'll buy the
first copy!

~~~
ptomato
Simple reason? They're making "enough" off the Mac version and quite
frequently the people who make the well-designed clever little mac apps (see:
omni, &c) have absolutely _no_ inclination to develop for Windows.

~~~
jasonkester
Perhaps I wasn't clear.

Why doesn't one of the smart, ambitious, young developers here at HN, who is
probably looking for a side project develop an Omnigraffle or Soulver clone
and start selling it? I can understand why the Omnigraffle people themselves
are too busy driving expensive cars through the hills around Silicon Valley to
do so themselves.

Considering how many time-waste-ish sites we see come through here in "Rate My
Site" form, it's clear that there's plenty of dev-power getting squandered on
a daily basis.

I've just given two concrete examples of applications that real people are
paying real money to use. Personally, if I had the time I'd be spending it
building WinSoulver rather than BigAssTextMessage.com.

~~~
shabda
People on Mac are more amenable to pay for software than on windows, generally
speaking.

~~~
patio11
Conversion rate for BCC on Macs is nearly double that of Windows. I have
always attributed it to my stunning design, rigid adherence to the HIG, and
use of cutting-edge Mac-centric programming languages like Java Swing. ;)

------
Rapu
I noticed something about Propellerheads Reason, the old music studio program.
Its interface emulates a rack of devices where you can draw cables between the
ports to create a sort of modular setup. Everything is made to look like
authentic hardware gear. Just like in the real world, there could only be one
cable in a socket at a time, although there didn't need to be any such
limitation in a software environment. Later, they kind of fixed this - by
adding a separate "splitter" module which duplicates its input signal into two
outputs (iirc).

~~~
blasdel
The drawing cables between ports part is what works, even if the animated
dangling is a little silly when they could be neatly routed.

What's terrible about those Pro Audio UIs is the arrays of fiddly little knobs
arranged in the same cramped pattern they are on the hardware. They have
improved the usability over the years by making the dials effectively sliders
-- scrubbing on an arc is just a degenerate case of scrubbing on one axis.

The worst are plugins that have these cramped UIs but aren't representative of
physical hardware -- some are worse than the worst Kay's Power Tools UIs.

------
Hexstream
Please note that Soulver is available for Mac and iPhone only and the full
version is 20$.

~~~
hernan7
I think I'll stick to bc for the time then.

------
Groxx
Wholly agree with nevinera on this. That calculator is there for people who
don't know another interface for calculators. Sure, there are better tools,
but sometimes simplicity & mimicry are best.

For a brief side-topic, Soulver is interesting. Good in many ways, but lacking
in a fair number.

For two examples, from a feature request I sent in a while ago.

1) Matrix calculation is effectively not possible, though you can fake it
through massive function hacks. This means an enormous amount of the math I
would've used it for simply could not be done.

2) This is a big and simple one: fractions go in, decimals come out. There's
an "answers" floating palette you can pop up, but guess what. _You can't
select the text_. Loads of useful information, and all you can do is _look_ at
it. I requested this be changed quite over a year ago (I mean, heck, why
not?), but it's still the same.

Also, the last update was _three years ago_. Barely-developed programs
frighten me.

------
theBobMcCormick
Excellent ideas in the article. I think it's interesting that he mentions
iPhone/iPad apps that emulate page turning. I remember when that was a popular
fad for newspapers/magazines that were moving to the web. They all had to have
fancy flash/java, whatever interfaces that emulated a magazine complete with
page turning animations. It was the kind of thing that must have _looked_ like
a million bucks when demonstrating it to the CEO, but was universally hated by
actual _users_. :-)

Other good examples from the web would be the many attempts that have been
made to create web based "shopping centers" and museum interfaces that would
try to recreate the experience of walking through a shopping center or museum.
Of course those all failed wildly because it's a hell of a lot easier to just
click on a menu than to walk down a "virtual hallway". :-)

------
richcollins
I agree that physical metaphors are overused. Unfortunately, they sell
software: [http://delicious-
monster.com/images/librarypage/screenshots/...](http://delicious-
monster.com/images/librarypage/screenshots/Delicious-Library.png)

~~~
hernan7
I guess eye candy sells in general:

<http://apcmag.com/disco_public_beta__burn_baby_burn.htm>

I predict the next App Store success will be a tip calculator app with wooden
side panels set on fire.

------
jsulak
Another excellent calculator (multi-platform, too):
<http://www.speedcrunch.org/en_US/index.html>

By default, it has a keypad, but you can turn it off easily enough.

~~~
bockris
OT: Thank you for reminding me about this calculator. I had it installed on my
old laptop and I forgot to install it on my new one. By the time I missed it,
my old laptop was re-imaged and re-deployed. I could not remember its name and
my google-fu was failing.

------
bitwize
In that Tandy Trower article about Windows, he mentions including simple apps
like a calculator and what not, to show off _what the UI toolkit is capable
of_ , not necessarily as useful end-user productivity tools (though those, in
the form of Write and Paint, would eventually be added).

It seems we've inherited the calculator app because that's what everyone has
always done before.

Also, digital cameras _do_ make fake shutter sounds...

------
fexl
Oh man that looks cool I can't wait to try it. I'm a hedge fund accountant and
I would love a way to keep a trail of calculations open like that. A lot of
times when I'm doing tricky Sherlock Holmes reconciliations a spreadsheet is
total overkill and too confining.

Thanks for posting, swombat! New item on my TODO.

------
davidw
I think the guy in "The Essentials of User Interface Design" says the same
thing somewhere in that book.

------
weichi
Since we're on the topic of calculators ...

Is there something like Soulver or Speedcrunch, but also handles unit
conversions a la google calculator?

instacalc is OK, but doesn't handle units properly either.

edit: www.encalc.com seems to do units right, but allowing only one expression
at a time is limiting.

------
wazoox
Yeah great, we just needed some "dc/bc" clone in a window at 19.95$. I agree
with the interface mistake, not with the product...

Use dc or bc!

------
chrischen
The calculator app is much more intuitive than some text app for general
users, just like the finder is much more intuitive than the terminal.

