Re: The Need for "Single Window Mode"

In article <PqMGg.2704$T8.2020@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
TheLetterK <none@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

ZnU wrote:
In article <SIsGg.40382$Uq1.36936@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
TheLetterK <none@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

[snip]

Additionally, it means that working with 'stacks' of paper becomes
very difficult. It requires a lot more time and effort to move to the
'next page' in a virtual interface than it does in real life. I cannot
simply lift the topmost *** to look at the bottom, then drop it back
in a virtual environment... but I can in a physical one.

Why can't you do this? Just slide the top window out of the way,

That takes much longer than it does to lift a paper you're already
touching. Especially if you want to move it back when you're done.

I wouldn't trust this assessment without some actual user testing to
back it up. One thing that emerges again and again in user testing is
that user perception of small amounts of time (e.g. how long it takes to
pull down a menu, or whatever) often has almost no relationship with
what a stopwatch reports.

or use something like Exposé.

Expose is a very good example of why kludges are a bad solution to
interface problems. Expose has its uses, but it's not the magic
window management solution everyone seems to present it as. It's good
at organizing windows to reduce screen clutter (thereby making it
easier to visually process), but it's still not a very good way to
pick specific windows.

I find it to be an extremely natural, fluid way of moving between
windows, but only when it's assigned to a mouse button. It loses a lot
of that if you have to move a hand up to an F-key to activate it.

To accurately describe using physical desktop metaphors in a
virtual environment, one would need to be able to describe an
office worker in 'god mode'. They would have to be able to
instantly teleport themselves anywhere, instantly make connections
between objects, instantly make objects appear and disappear,
rewrite the laws of physics on the fly, and cause things to move
all on their own. Hell, with backups, this office worker would
also have to be able to pull objects out of the past in order to
make up for errors. If we were all able to do this sort of thing,
do you think we would still be arranging papers on a desk?

I think we'd still be arranging them in physical space, yes. Rather
than, for instance, only looking at one *** at a time and using
some abstract method to switch to other sheets.

I didn't say you should present only one set of data at a time. I was
merely pointing out that spatial organization isn't really a good
solution either.

Spacial organization is rooted in some extremely basic and probably
actually instinctive capabilities of the brain.

It's not instinctive. Anyone who deals with new computer users can
tell you that.

Well, note that I didn't say that the specifies of how desktop operating
systems implement spacial organization were necessarily intuitive;
merely that spacial organization itself it. The fact that your brain
natively understands spacial organization obviously doesn't magically
confer the knowledge that you move a window by dragging its title bar,
or resize it from a box in the lower right corner.

It's also going to become even *more* of a good fit in the
future, as screens get bigger and users have more room to spread
things out. My desktop spans a 24" screen and a 17" screen, and
there are very few single applications which can really
effectively use even just the entire 24" screen. There are
studies that show that giving regular desktop users monstrous
screens (40-50", IIRC) actually has rather significant
productivity benefits, and I suspect that the ability to do what
we could call "spacial task management" plays a significant role
in that.
Yes, it does, simply because non-spatial task management is so
very bad. It's not that 2d spatial desktop metaphors are *good*,
just that the only currently workable alternative is worse.

Ahh. If what you're saying is just that both physical desktops and
the virtual desktops that are modeled on them are inferior to some
hypothetical system which allows more flexible special organization
(say, making full use of 3D space), you could very well be right.

I'm saying we need to stop using a desktop metaphor in the first
place. It made sense 20 years ago, but not today. Even a zooming UI
is better than what we've got.

I think in most instances, 3D interfaces with 2D input devices and
displays are not particularly useful.

Until the price of large 3D displays and force-feedback glove (or
at least motion tracking gloves) comes down a lot in price though,
we'll have to make do.

Not at all. Gyroscopic mice would work as well (they already exist
and aren't that expensive). You don't need to give people full
tactile sensations--just a good way to move a cursor along a z-axis.
I'm not talking about creating a virtual reality environment. Those
are even *less* productive than what we're using now. Putting a ton
of space between related tasks is a really bad idea.

I'm not talking about that either. I'm talking about something more like
direct manipulation of objects that appear to float in 3D space in front
of your screen. It wouldn't be an immersive VR environment, just a small
(well, 20-30") space on your desk to work with virtual objects.

I think the gloves (or maybe some computer vision system which can just
recognize what your hands are doing) are important because I rather
suspect that being able to manipulate things with two hands is extremely
useful. Mice are sort of the equivalent of interacting with the entire
world using a single finger.

--
"Those who enter the country illegally violate the law."
-- George W. Bush in Tucson, Ariz., Nov. 28, 2005
.

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