[ExI] The Field of HCI

Eugen Leitl eugen at leitl.org
Sat Feb 2 15:46:37 UTC 2013


On Sat, Feb 02, 2013 at 02:44:04PM +0000, Anders Sandberg wrote:

> Yes, he has a point. When gestures are no longer direct manipulation of  
> the objects or commonly understood invocations of their powers (like  
> pressing a button) they are just as hopeless and mysterious as keyboard  

The major difference is that properly designed keyboard shortcuts
(think vi, not emacs) are ergonomic, while gestures will give
you gorilla arms from hell.

> shortcuts. Which are not necessarily *bad*, but shouldn't be the core  
> for how your software works.
>
> I like using StrokeIt to control my Windows programs - it is so  
> convenient to navigate the browser using mouse movements rather than  
> going over to the menu, a button or the keyboard, but the set of  

There's a reason why people who know their stuff use tiling
window managers and shortcut everything, using tenkeyless
keyboards even without cursor keys, nevermind a rodent.

> gestures I use is small and super-common (go back, forward, close tab)  
> so it is easy to learn it.
>
> Another interesting design pattern is Skeumorphism: making something  
> look like an everyday object, which should give you a hint of what it is  
> supposed to do. Except that often they just become mysterious because  
> the metaphor is weak or aged (who has a trashcan on your desktop? what  
> does the bird sitting on the branch icon do? what the heck is a tape  
> recorder?)



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