
The Cooper Journal: The best interface is no interface - davezatch
http://www.cooper.com/journal/2012/08/the-best-interface-is-no-interface.html/
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carlesfe
At first I thought I would read a rant about current user interfaces, but the
article turned out to be well thought, smartly written and, above all, it
doesn't discuss interfaces _per se_. It goes up a meta level and proposes
eliminating interfaces everywhere, because instead of helping people, they
hinder the interaction.

During the first few lines I had to convince myself that it is actually a good
idea, but they are absolutely right. We are on an interface craze. Everything
has a twitter panel, which isn't a bad idea, but most designs nowadays
obstruct regular interaction to ease a few corner use cases.

Blogs and newspapers hide their content beneath social buttons. Current "Smart
TVs" are bad as TVs though they have great facebook support.

But, 99% of the time you want to watch the TV, and if you need to press some
buttons for that, you're actually delaying and difficulting the main use case.

Can I mention Apple at this point? Apple is both hated and loved because of
its interface design, but I think they're spot on. If they can define the best
interaction patterns with a TV and program then on their future iTV, they
might eat the market.

What do you think?

~~~
csmatt
First off, I liked the article. He's right in that visual UI should only be
looked at after everything possible has been gleaned from process.

As for TVs, I think most who are designing the interfaces are still stuck
"inside the box". They need to take a couple steps back and learn how modern
people use the interfaces. This is one of the main reasons I dropped cable and
now feed my TV from a web-connected PC. The cable box interface was a thick
jungle of rectangular boxes when searching or filtering should be forefront.
We have the technology!

~~~
carlesfe
My grandfather, a regular country man, is horrorized by the amount of choices
he has.

Nowadays there is a remote for the TV with a lot of buttons, another for the
video decoder, with more buttons, and another for the radio, with yes, more
buttons.

He was used to have a machine which worked upon being switched on. The TV had
buttons labeled 1-10 for the ten channels. The radio only needed a dial and a
volume slider.

He can't use the radio anymore and, with his age, he's starting to get stuck
when he presses the wrong TV button (teletext, menus, etc). We taught him to
turn the TV off and on again.

More choices is not always better. Interfaces need to be simple or
nonexistant. And, by the way, TV manufacturers should ship TVs with two
remotes. The regular one, and another for seniors, containing only buttons
1-10 and the volume control.

Seniors, for some reason, think they'll blow the machine up if they press the
wrong button. And seniority is where we're all heading...

~~~
freehunter
My grandparents always lament how complicated things are these days. They too
just want a simple 1-10 and on/off remote. These do exist, but I keep
reminding them why it's not possible for them: they have cable. And a DVR. And
a DVD player. And a sound bar.

In the days of simple on/off TVs, these didn't exist. I know they're not going
to give up the Food Network, ESPN, Nickelodeon for the great-grandkids, CSI,
etc. Things are more complicated now for a reason. When there were only 3
channels, you only needed one remote with 10 buttons on it. I agree that
interfaces have gotten out of control (I can enter the menu on my TV without
the remote, but I can't exit it?), but the reality is, you get features or you
get simplicity. There's no way to control 3 or 4 disparate systems with all
their capabilities with only 10 buttons and no on-screen interface.

~~~
stan_rogers
How about ten (or so) nice big buttons with OLED key caps? I've used rather
remarkably simple smart remotes in the past; their only real problem being
that they used resistive, early-generation LCD touch screens, which are not
great from a tactile perspective. A simple, clearly labelled remote that's
capable of changing context beats the heck out of three or four devices with
dozens of tiny, poorly-labelled rubber chicklets.

~~~
onli
It doesn't necessarily beat the heck out of anything. Tools with changing
contexts, be it a remote or software, are highly confusing for users. They
always have to remember in which state they are, especially hard when there is
bad visibility (like a remote you want to press blindly). vi isn't hated by so
many without a cause.

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nameuserc
Non-interactive is far better than interactive. Faster, more efficient, more
secure, less error-prone, less repeated effort. It's less work!

But there is an army of UI designers fighting against common sense. I'm sure
we'll hear from some of them in this thread.

djb nailed this problem on the head when he wrote about the UNIX interfaces.
Quoting rules, special characters... it's a minefield even if you are a "UNIX
command line guru". There's a high cognitive price to pay if you are trying to
avoid all mistakes using this interface.

Solution: Remove the user interfaces. Programs interface with each other, not
the user.

Non-interactive = less work. You start the system. It runs. There is no
interaction. No ongoing cognitive price to pay other than monitoring.

And this is only the command line. Dare we look at the price imposed by GUI's?

Imagine a slide show where you had to click each and every time you want to
see a new slide. Nice CSS! Wow, that Javascript is amazing! The page is so
beautiful! Click, click, click. (Developers rejoice: We can track the clicks!)
Now imagine you are the user and the slide show is 10,000 slides. Forget it.

Mechanize? Perl, Python, Ruby? JQuery? Give me a break. Why should people even
have to waste their time writing such things?

Hey no problem! The kind developers decide to add an option to run the show on
auto-pilot. Hurray. No more interaction is needed.

Think again.

Now imagine you have view 10,000 different slideshows to view and each one has
a different way to start the auto-pilot mode based on the developer's own idea
of "user experience".

You are right back where you started. Find the auto-pilot button. 10,000
times. Interaction.

A "slide show" is just a random example. You can apply this almost any sort of
information intake where "interfaces" like GUI's are involved.

Go to a library and watch people trying to use various computer databases. In
almost all cases, you will see them spending noticeable effort just to find
things to click, and reading onscreen instructions. Every database is
different. Every interface is unique. End-users: make 'em work.

The entire web is like this. Every web developer wants users to interact. Why?
It's too much damn work. For users.

Will it ever change? Doubtful.

There is an entire industry built around forcing users to interact regardless
of whether it is truly necessary.

For every person working to build an automated system there are two more
building a system that forces user interaction.

Sometimes nerds, e.g. those familiar with Lisp or Scheme, say "everything is a
list". Can mere mortals who know nothing of "programming" make lists? Is there
any literate person on the planet who hasn't made a list?

"List processing".

Too _boring_. (It certainly isn't too _difficult_. Even the grandmother who
can't use a computer can still make lists just fine.)

I know, let's build an "interface"! For humans!

Good grief.

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kephra
I think the main problem is that programs are designed by programmers who
think that the users are idiots. Programs designed for programmers have a much
leaner interface.

e.g. think about accounting applications:

You had trained data typists in the 60s, who typed the accounting records in a
format, that can be directly processed in a batch oriented way.

You had 3270 terminals in the 70s, for trained typists, to enter the
accounting data into a form, that was producing the records to be processed in
a batch oriented way.

User interfaces become more interactive in the 80s, applications become
personal, and there was no batch oriented processing anymore.

Most accounting software requires the use of the mouse now, so its no longer
possible to use them for a trained typist, who prefers that her fingers stays
on keyboard.

Lets step back:

My own home grown accounting software is written AWK. Its parsing a plain text
in a markdown like syntax, and producing all papers I need for tax and
accounting with a single "make". Calling ":w<cr>make" is F2 in VI for me. The
complete accounting system is 88 lines for invoices, 128 lines for monthly
tax, 168 lines for annual tax. Its pure batch oriented, requires no database,
and I'm using my preferred interface, the VI editor.

~~~
msutherl
This is not "the main problem". This is "a" specific way of looking at things
that becomes relevant in certain situations.

There are factors at play that often render this view naive, such as the fact
that untrained consumers need to learn a panoply of interfaces constantly over
time. Most contemporary interface designs that you come across outside of
specific professional domains are optimized for learnability by making use of
physical metaphors and adhering to conventions. I trust that you believe that
this is not for a good reason. The results of usability studies show
otherwise. The fact that interfaces are the way they are shows otherwise. The
experience of myself and many people I've met shows otherwise.

Where training can be afforded, interfaces can be more "lean", but more often
than not, it cannot. I suspect that you are underestimating (1) the commitment
you've made to allocating time to learning new interfaces and (2) your talent
in doing so.

As for me, I likewise prefer VI as an interface, since I allocated a year of
free-time to learning to be productive with the damn thing, but I could have
spent that year instead _living my life_.

------
ch
I'm curious just how far down the rabiit hole you can take this philosiphy.

Just how many APIs and programming interfaces and other interaction points of
a computer can be eliminated or automated away or even made to adapt to user
preferences?

What would this mean for the divide between the Operating System and its
Applications?

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
Pretty far. Imagine one day not having a remote for your tv at all, and just
looking at a certain spot(camera) on the TV saying, "TV, turn on" "next
channel, next channel" "louder".

That would completely eliminate the need for a UI or menu or remote.

~~~
sp332
It would get rid of the remote, but it doesn't get rid of the interface. And
who wants to talk over a movie you're watching just to change the volume?

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
In that case just move your mouth and the camera should use facial & mouth
movement recognition to know what you want.

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brudgers
One reason retailers are chomping at the bits over near field payment is that
it will eliminate all the unproductive conversation between employees One and
customers. Distracted by their phone, there will be less likelihood of
personal interaction. This will leave the employee free to pimp magazine
subscriptions and extended warranties in strict accordance with the scripts
retailers are forcing upon checkout line staff.

There's already a great interface for taking people's money which doesn't
require a location aware electronic device. It has a face and a uses natural
language.

(Now, get off my lawn).

~~~
jordn
Retailer's will surely recognize that their value add is in the personal,
friendly, and helpful atmosphere they can create with their staff. Square
seems to have pretty much hit the nail on the head with 'Auto Tab' -
eliminating the awkward, unglamorous part of the process (the obvious exchange
of money) means that the coffee shop barista can instead focus on greeting the
customer by name, offering the usual or taking a different order without
reminding them of the money their spending or directly fiddling aroudn with
cash or phones.

Sounds like a pretty ideal shopping experience to me. The only real benefit I
see NFC having is that it can eliminate the wallet from my pocket.

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DanielRibeiro
Some of the same points Aza Askin did a few years ago on his _Don't make me
click_ presentation[1] :

 _"The best interface for a shovel is a hole where you need it"_

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuELwq2ThJE>

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jordn
I thought this was great. Learning from the users as much as possible in order
for the interface to get out of the users way is a solid idea that can be
incorporated into nearly everything... you just have to not implement it in a
Clippy "Did you mean..." kind of way.

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rachelbythebay
Apparently the best page is blank without JavaScript enabled, too.

~~~
sp332
Interesting, it loaded just fine in the text-only "links" browser for me.

~~~
rachelbythebay
I found part of the problem:

#content { padding-top: 53px; z-index: 0; visibility: hidden; }

They're obviously flipping attributes around in scripting.

So, keeping with the theme of "no interface", disabling style sheets for this
site will let the content display. Brilliant!

~~~
sp332
That's an overly-aggressive approach to avoiding FOUC (flash of unstyled
content).

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kevinpet
Very good article, but I was initially turned off by the anachronism of the
commands it starts with. Referring to NTFS in a scenario purporting to be
before 1984 throws me off and makes me assume the article is poorly
researched.

