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20120407/Raskin vs Engelbart: Difference between revisions
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If there were camps (no doubt these ideas are complementary, particularly when their developed features become common), I'd be soundly in the Englebart camp. If I'm spending so much time with it, I want my computer to be a computer, I want to learn how to consistently work with content, I want an expanding, consistent toolset that eventually offers me meta capabilities. | If there were camps (no doubt these ideas are complementary, particularly when their developed features become common), I'd be soundly in the Englebart camp. If I'm spending so much time with it, I want my computer to be a computer, I want to learn how to consistently work with content, I want an expanding, consistent toolset that eventually offers me meta capabilities. | ||
A good example of Raskin's approach is the iPhone. It's designed to be as simple as possible, with just one button (aside from volume). Android, on the other hand, has (with some current changes), four buttons. A home button (like the iPhone), a menu button, which consistently accesses the app's functions, a back button, used for navigation in | A good example of Raskin's approach is the iPhone. It's designed to be as simple as possible, with just one button (aside from volume). Android, on the other hand, has (with some current changes), four buttons. A home button (like the iPhone), a menu button, which consistently accesses the app's functions, a back button, used for navigation in or between apps, and a search button. Granted, these buttons don't apply for every type of app, but they make apps more obvious for me, and iPhone has had to come up with some really, really inobvious workarounds (like having to double-click the button, hah hah). | ||
This is also reflected in current operating environment design. For a while, we had a kind of plateau in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIMP_(computing) WIMP] interfaces. Windows, Mac, Unix/Linux graphical interfaces all pretty much worked the same way, with the mouse, menus, toolbars, copy and paste all ready functions, very much, in my mind, in the Englebart model. Now, operating systems are struggling to merge or subsume their operation with "the touchscreen way." The result, currently, to my mind, is mess. Word, Firefox and Chrome pretty much have entirely reinvented their interfaces several times, each time it's a new puzzle game to figure out where things are. Fine for savvy people with an interest in constantly figuring things out, but leaving many other people out. | This is also reflected in current operating environment design. For a while, we had a kind of plateau in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIMP_(computing) WIMP] interfaces. Windows, Mac, Unix/Linux graphical interfaces all pretty much worked the same way, with the mouse, menus, toolbars, copy and paste all ready functions, very much, in my mind, in the Englebart model. Now, operating systems are struggling to merge or subsume their operation with "the touchscreen way." The result, currently, to my mind, is mess. Word, Firefox and Chrome pretty much have entirely reinvented their interfaces several times, each time it's a new puzzle game to figure out where things are. Fine for savvy people with an interest in constantly figuring things out, but leaving many other people out. | ||