Re: For a GUI that is easier to use

["Blad, John Erling" <john erling blad aftenposten no>]

But what about a situation where you have two more or less similar
applications but only one of them do the job?

For example; you hva Gimp and Corel Photo (whatever) and only
Gimp uses the apropriate plugin?

I like the idea but it can be extreamly difficult to get working.

One idea I used some years ago. In an application we had a set of
actions for different objects. The different members of the project
group split in two camps, thos in favor of object menus (more or
less object methods) and those in favor of toolbar buttons and
states (function like interface). The last solution has historical
preferences, the first one seems to be more "right". Funny thing
was that both could be defined as tasks where you reorganised the
order you did some operations (select object, then choose method or
select virtual method and then the objects).

In general it seems to me that tasks is closer to how people think
than both object-style gui's and function-style gui's.

John

------------
I agree as well.  Just think of the integration between programs which
adopt a similar strategy, we might be able to save some time in
accomplishing our work.  Not a bad thought, great idea!!

Kevin

adam kramer wrote:
> 
>  i agree with robert on designing the ui around tasks. I have just been
> listening in so far, but I'd like to point everyone to a really helpful
> shareware book on UI design, TASK-CENTERED USER INTERFACE DESIGN by
> Clayton Lewis and John Rieman. You can download at:
> ftp.cs.colorado.edu/pub/distribs/clewis/HCI-Design-Book/
> 
> -ak.
> 
>  > To put it in simpler terms, I wish the GUI of a
> > computer to be "task-oriented" instead of
> > "program-oriented". A user-interface should presents
> > to the users the "what's" (what the computer is
> > capable of doing) instead of the "how's" (how to do
> > such things). I envision that such a system will have
> > the system menus (namely the "Start" menu in Windows,
> > or the main menu in "Gnome") to be full of verbs
> > instead of nouns. We can have a "Check" menu with
> > "E-mail" and "Stock-quote" sub-menus, "Write" menu
> > with "E-mail" and "Check" sub-menus, "Buy" menu with
> > sub-menus with all the things you can buy. Also,
> > imagine that installing software on a computer is
> > really installing new capabilities of a computer
> > (teaching the computer new tricks). I care more for
> > what a computer can do and less for what software a
> > computer has.

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