![]() When a certain action (like pressing Control-I) has one effect in Application A and another in Application B, you cannot form habits. Think about what would happen to your typing if the "delete" key got moved to where "return" is. You'd get a few blocks, maybe, but as soon as a dog ran across the street your habits and your foot would kick in and you'd accelerate right into Fido. ![]() Imagine trying to drive a car with the brake and accelerator pedals interchanged. When can we form a habit? For one thing, when a certain action always has the same effect. Here's one example of a place interface designers usually fall off the boat: If we can reduce using a tool to habit then we no longer need to think about the tool and can concentrate on the task. Interfaces won't improve until you complain and until interface designers come to know and accept the way the human mind works on tasks. Stop making me run around your dumb treadmill every time I want to use a computer!" Yell something like "Why the hell don't you make your computers work more like they could? Stop lying to me about how all this stuff is great and necessary. What I am trying to do is to get you to jump up and down and yell at the people who make today's dreadful interfaces. There's a lot of detail in how this all works internal to the computer that I know I am glossing over, but I don't want to turn Wired into a technical journal (or give away trade secrets). If I draw somewhere else, the system lets me draw free form. ![]() When I start making marks with my GID on and about the staff, the system interprets them as notes, rests, and the other paraphernalia that is part of the weird way we notate music. The command was sold to me as part of a music command set, of course. I use a command that gives me some musical staves. Going back to our new interface, say I want to compose a duet for French horn and oboe. Entrenched marketers and managers, when they understand the implications, are discomforted by the idea of a cold restart with a product that threatens their livelihood. Only decrepit technowonks think this is impossible or problematical. It's simpler than what we have now and a lot easier to use. Is this technologically feasible? Of course. You like the way MacWrite does spell checking but the way Word does footnotes? Install the spell checker from one and the footnoter from the other. Vendors should supply not applications, but command sets, interoperable with all other command sets that you purchase. Is this too obvious a way for a computer to behave? The same idea goes for spreadsheets, communications, databases, animation, music, and games. The important point is that I don't have to launch a drawing program or CAD package to draw, the very act of drawing alerts the system to what I need. A button, held during the act, distinguishes cursor positioning from drawing. The interface is smart enough to know that I am drawing. If I want to draw, I just grab my GID (a Graphic Input Device such as a tablet pen, mouse, trackball, glove, whatever) and start to draw. I just type typing is enough of a clue for the interface to do the right thing. I don't have to launch the word processor. The machine doesn't sit there booting for a minute while the thought I wanted to write down evaporates from my mind. If the computer wasn't on, the first keystroke turns it on (and the keystroke isn't lost). When I come to the machine to type a letter, I just sit down and type. I've built systems that work this way - let me describe how one of them looks and feels.
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