
The Anti-Mac Interface (1996) - brudgers
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/anti-mac-interface/
======
m_mueller
One thing that almost always gets overlooked when critizing / trying to
innovate on Xerox Parc-like interfaces, is discoverability. Look at departures
from this interface (or predecessors of it) and you'll almost always find a
system where it's hard for users to discover what they can do and how their
actions will affect the state. Most prominently:

* iOS style gestures

* Office Ribbons (where has my feature XY been moved to? I guess I have to google now..)

* CLI (what does parameter -p do again?)

* Metro style swipes

* Voice commands

The only interface that has _improved_ on discoverability so far, is OSX,
especially with its integrated spotlight search in each application's help
menu.

What I'd like to see is a CLI that (a) understands objects by default (i.e.
PowerShell) and (b) is discoverable, for example by using mouse interactions
when you're trying to learn.

(a) would mean that the command line applications become much easier to
compose. Imagine something like list / dict comprehensions in the command
line:

ls | [entry.created for entry in $@ if entry.filename[0] == 'a'] | sort

(b) would mean that you could hover each of the commands above, inspect the
possible parameters, default values, examples without having to execute
anything. The whole interface could get much richer as well, for example if
the output of your commands is a list of objects that have the same attributes
(e.g. `ls`), it would display it in a table where each column is sortable
using _gasp_ the mouse.

~~~
skymt
The Office Ribbon is notable for being designed entirely for discoverability.
What it lacks is familiarity.

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2005/09/14/467126.as...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2005/09/14/467126.aspx)

> Office "12" consolidates all of the entry points into one place: the Ribbon.
> So if you're trying to find a feature and don't know where it is, the scope
> of your search is drastically reduced. Click on the leftmost tab, and click
> across the tabs until you reach the end. That it. It's either there or it's
> not--there are no other "rocks" to look under, no other places we've hidden
> functionality. We've found in early tests that people find it easier to
> discover how to do new things in the Ribbon, and they're more apt to explore
> the UI looking for better ways to get things done.

~~~
Mikhail_Edoshin
My favorite path is that (MS Word):

1\. Click the tiny icon in the bottom right corner of the styles widget. It
will open essentially the same widget, but as a vertical list and with a few
additional controls; this is what we're after.

2\. At the bottom there are three nearly identical buttons without labels.
Click the 2nd one from the left (the tooltip says "Style Inspector"). This
will open another floating window. We don't need it per se, but, again, it has
extra controls that we need.

3\. At the bottom of the window there is another set of unlabeled buttons. We
need the first one (tooltip "Reveal formatting"). (Note that the icon is also
very similar to the three icons in the previous panel.) Click it and you'll
get the "Reveal formatting" panel. This is our target

4\. Now close the other two panels. You're ready.

I write code to create reports in MS Word XML and I need this panel to see if
I'm getting the code right (i.e that all non-obvious flags like "keep with
next" are in place). I know no other path to this widget. And since I don't
write such code often, I keep forgetting how I get to this panel. E.g.
yesterday I tried to find it, but failed. It's good I saw you reply and made
another effort to retrace the steps :)

I totally think a classic Mac-like menu consisting solely of text would
provide better discoverability here.

~~~
grkvlt
Microsoft Word makes it pretty easy to find commands. For your example, I did
the following: Click on 'Help' menu, type 'reve', press down arrow to select
'reveal formatting' and the actual menu item (in the 'View' menu) is
highlighted, press 'enter' to enable. This is in Office 2016 for OSX.

~~~
m_mueller
That's what I meant. It's not a MS Office but an OSX feature. AFAIK the
windows version still doesn't let you search through its ribbons.

~~~
grkvlt
OK, fair point. So is there nothing like that available in Windows? I had
thought Win 7 and 8 had similar features, but maybe only for the desktop, not
applications?

------
userbinator
_We predict that people who have grown up with computers will be much more
capable as computer users than the current generation of users. Thus, they
will be able to use (and will in fact, demand) expressive interfaces with
advanced means of expressing their wants._

How unfortunate that this did not turn out to be the case, and I think it's
likely that is because most people liked the "simple and easy" Mac-like UIs
with no learning curve, and didn't want to grow beyond them.

The point about "user control" is odd though, since that's basically the exact
opposite of the Apple philosophy today, and even the older Macs seemed more
opaque and with less user control than the PCs of the time.

~~~
Swizec
> The point about "user control" is odd though, since that's basically the
> exact opposite of the Apple philosophy today, and even the older Macs seemed
> more opaque and with less user control than the PCs of the time.

As an advanced user, I don't _want_ more control. I want defaults that are
good enough that I never want to change them.

Every hour I spend tinkering with my computer, is an hour I didn't spend
achieving useful work. Sometimes yak shaving is useful, most of the times it
just keeps me from getting anything done.

~~~
PuppyWhirl
Why not both? I want good defaults, and also the ability to change the things
that I might want tweaked for whatever reason down the line. A powerful
preferences interface is the software equivalent of opening up the hood of a
car -- just because I want it to run well doesn't mean I'm not gonna poke
around.

~~~
Swizec
About your cars reference, there's a funny segment from an old Top Gear where
the presenters beat everyone at the modified cars drag strip race using a
stock Bentley.

Everyone else poured thousands of hours and thousands of dollars into their
car. James May showed up with a stock Bentley - a big fat comfortable car -
and won the day.

~~~
digi_owl
I suspect there is some hidden context there that hid his chances of pulling
that off, in classic Top Gear asshole style.

------
vbezhenar
> We seem to have settled on the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointer) model,
> and there is very little real innovation in interface design anymore.

It's an interesting exercise to compare this to the mobile platforms, e.g.
iOS. Windows are gone. Icons are here. Menus are changed. Pointer is changed
too (your finger is pointer, not an abstract arrow).

Though on OS X desktop I don't see any innovations at all! May be I'm missing
something? Windows, icons, menu, pointer, that's all. Probably gestures are an
innovation, but it isn't used widely except in operating system windows
manager and Safari. Can we think of a tabs as an innovation? I never really
liked them, I believe that tabs could be replaced by better window management.
It's something that tied to application now, but it should be tied to a window
manager and probably in better ways.

Desktop user interface is definitely stagnating, if we're talking about OS X.
I don't know much about new Windows releases, but in Windows 7 it was the same
story.

~~~
smacktoward
_> Windows are gone_

Ehhh, yes and no; as mobile OSes have gotten more multitasking-friendly
they've moved towards the "card" metaphor, in which each app runs in a card
and there's some method for shuffling between them. And a card is really just
a window that's maximized 100% of the time. (Which is how most general users
use windows on the desktop, so they're not losing much.)

~~~
userbinator
Hopefully the reason for a lack of windows on mobile devices is because their
screens are too small to manipulate them effectively with a finger.

 _Which is how most general users use windows on the desktop, so they 're not
losing much._

I've noticed this too, and it's puzzling - I've seen people maximise browsers
on large monitors and end up with a narrow column of text surrounded by tons
of blank space, or the more difficult-to-read extremely wide lines of text.
Why don't they resize their windows to a comfortable width, and also gain the
advantage of being able to interact with the other things outside the window?

I very rarely maximise any windows, but usually have several of them arranged
such that I can see the important bits of each one and switch between them
easily. One thing I do a lot is comparing the information in different
windows, so perhaps it's entirely natural that I do this. It's definitely
better than the alternative of switching repeatedly between full-screen
windows and memorising their contents...

~~~
kartickvad
I maximise windows to eliminate distraction. I'd rather finish reading the
article I'm reading, for example, and then Cmd-Tab to something else, rather
than obsessively glancing at a Gmail window a dozen times through the article.

More the multitasking, the more stressed I get. One thing at a time is
relaxing, and more productive. Feeling frantic doesn't result in any more
work, or higher quality work, being done, after all.

I maximise windows even on my 30-inch monitor. Recently, I've switched to
full-screen. I wish I could tell OS X to launch apps full-screen by default.
Windows should, for me, be the exception, not the norm. This is one aspect
where mobile OSs are superior, for me.

~~~
digi_owl
I seem to recall a old article that compared the usage of unix shell with that
of ones daily life.

Could have been written by someone that trained older people on how to use
computers.

This by showing how the shell task controls (ctrl-z, bg, fg) mapped to real
life tasks.

Say you have a long running task, ctrl-z and bg makes it continue in the
background. That i believe he likened to putting on a kettle in the morning.
when either is done there will be someone sort of notification, and until then
you don't really have to care about it.

Similarly you find something in the mail that you may want to deal with later.
With physical mail you put it somewhere that you can see as you move around
the home. With the shell you get the jobs command, and if you try to log out
without ending them you get a warning.

This all going by memory.

------
Animats
The proposed alternative: "The central role of language" using "a pidgin
language for computers." Sort of like talking to Wolfram Alpha or Siri.

So far, that hasn't scaled well. Doing anything complicated through such an
interface is painful. Works fine for the easy/banal stuff, which is why it's
successful in the phone space.

~~~
teddyh
The better alternative might be something more like this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI#t=9m](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI#t=9m)

------
jjoonathan
Perhaps it's an interesting examination of co-evolution between the computer,
the GUI, and the and user, but the central thesis is silly. If the inversion
process you use to arrive at "anti-" statements is poorly defined, you are
free to make them mean anything you wish. In this case, they were made
trivially equivalent to the aforementioned evolution. There's nothing wrong
with this except that the author then expects us to accept the validity of the
core principle on the basis of its correct post-dictions and thereby extend
credence to its pre-dictions. Nice try.

~~~
JupiterMoon
Did you notice that it was published 20 years ago.

~~~
jjoonathan
Yes, I did.

------
Zigurd
This is an interesting fossil of an extinct branch of UI. Mobile touch UI
fulfilled a small number of these suggested changes, and mostly for good
reasons:

1\. UI has been sliding toward metaphor and abstraction, away from "reality"
because aping reality on a screen doesn't work.

2\. Direct manipulation is good, and it got better with touch. Babies grok it.
So can your PHB. Apps need more of it.

3\. Ever eat in China? Several spoken languages. Menus have pictures and you
can point if you don't share a spoken language with the waiter. This works. It
is often faster than using voice assistants and commands.

4\. He gets this one right: consistency is overrated. Be instantly learnable
and explorable. OTOH Android is trying to bring a dress code to the bazaar.

5\. OK, good. WYSIWYG has given way to a "reflow" compromise. Nobody think in
terms of printed pages anymore. BUT Nielsen's love for XML-based markups is
weird. They all suck and I have the scars, from O'Reilly's book production
workflow, to prove it.

6\. Nielsen gets this the most right. Anticipation of user needs suffuses
modern mobile OSs.

OK, and so on... I also think he gets modelessness wrong. Give you boss vi.
"It's really good, I use it all the time." See how that works out for you.

------
x5n1
Microsoft Bob anyone?

[http://toastytech.com/guis/bob.html](http://toastytech.com/guis/bob.html)

------
denniskane
>the characteristics of the Internet desktop

Something like... "Ycombuntu"?
[https://www.urdesk.net/desk?l=yc](https://www.urdesk.net/desk?l=yc)

Granted, it _looks_ just like a Macintosh, but there is much, much more to it
than meets the eye. I am going to start really getting into some of those
language concepts pretty soon (help needed)!

To see the site with my sales pitch to HN thrown in at the beginning:
[https://www.urdesk.net/desk?l=yc&r=1](https://www.urdesk.net/desk?l=yc&r=1)

------
zw123456
I have often pondered, that if it were possible for me to transcribe every
thought that I had into words or actions immediately, how both wonderful and
at the same time, frightening that would be.

------
catern
The natural language interaction they suggest is partially satisfied by Google
(or, in general, web search). Most information you want can be found in this
way, and we don't have any issues of allowing an undo mechanism or being
interactive with the user because searching the web involves no mutation of
the state of your computer or anything. And Google search results freely
change and improve without the user's knowledge..

------
agumonkey
Their theme looks deceptively old and simple, making me think it's an
abandoned website but it's not. Very appreciated.

