First impression of Vista

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Tue, Feb 06, 2007 at 01:56:08PM -0500, ted leslie wrote:
> When i a was doing my Masters of Math at waterloo, 
> i took a grad course in UI, from Bill Cowan, i wonder if he is still
> there? you're there is see, name ring a bell? he was an excellent prof.
> he is probably retired by now.

I graduated almost 7 years ago. :)

> Anyways one of the things we did, is do UI tests, and count number of
> feet the mouse moved over the source of a sessions. Popup menus at the
> mouse point on the middle and right click was pretty popular (common
> back then).

Well, interesting thing to test, but on the other hand is that actually
a meassure of a better interface?  Lots of good keyboard shortcuts could
cut that down to essentially nothing.  A completely keyboard controlled
interface with no mouse at all would win that contest easily.  Does that
mean it is a better interface?

> Now back in 1991, on  a SGI, our mind set at the time was, 1-2 apps,
> actaully mostly one, and we'd measure mouse movement distances,etc.
> more from the point of view of tool panels for a app.

Certainly explains the circular popup menus some SGI apps had at the
time too.  Some people liked them (little mouse movement needed), others
hated them (hard to hit quickly).

> I can see your point, but then I have been a dual head 3200x1200
> desktop'r for some time and redundant (not sure that is even correct)
> menus on each app, isnt so bad,
> now with the cheaping on montiors, especially digital paper coming into
> play in the next year or two, a 400$ 30"  2560x1440 5lbs monitor is
> going to be relatively soon (its about 1800$ now and 20 lbs), so i would
> argue the issue of desktop menu saving space will be right out the
> window at that time, and with such a bigger desktop, you will get bitten
> even harder with that Mac top menu way of doing things.
> For a power user, the old original X way of a right or middle click for
> menus is actually pretty efficient, but boring.

Dell is selling the 30" 2560x1600 for $1399 right now.

I still think the right way to make an efficient interface, is keyboard
shortcuts.  And whoever invented drag-and-drop should be severely
punished.

--
Len Sorensen
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