[geeks] fwd: The Seven Phases of Owning an iPod: UI

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 @ 11:58 -0600, Lionel Peterson said:

> Well, I stumbled on to that function very quickly (as I was in "wild
> monkey" mode with the interface when I first got my iPod... I think
> it's fine, and I was not aware there *is* a manual for the iPod...

It's called the "rule of discovery".  The iPod follows this rule.

It means you should be able to learn something, wether it is a UI or an
API or the controls for a machine, by discovery, by trying it.

The iPod controls combined with visual responses is a nearly automatic
training system. Do something, see immediate results, your brain learns
without you even thinking about it.

That's what a lot of other interfaces lack.

Even in complex systems where you need a jumpstart, you can still use
the rule of discovery to link complex things together so that your
knowledge of foundation pieces can be combined naturally.

It's interesting that the command line interface of TOPS and TOPS-20
was discoverable, at least partially.  The help system and each 
command's context aware completion features were great training aids for
new users, and reminders for experienced users.

Unfortunately, almost no system since tried that, which is one of the
reasons so many people viewed command line systems as being hard to
learn.

There is no reason why a command line system cannot be discoverable, it
just hasn't generally been done.

-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["The determined programmer can write a
FORTRAN program in any language." ]