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Learning from Terminals to Design the Future of User Interfaces

brandur.org

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Re: Learning from Terminals to Design the Future of User Interfaces

#11

Post by micheljansen »

I recently got gifted an old Commodore PET. It boots straight into BASIC, so anything you type can be a command or a program, but what’s even cooler is the way the console (they call it “monitor”) works. If you press “up”, rather than scrolling through past commands one by one like in Bash, DOS etc. the cursor simply goes up the screen. You can modify anything you see and hit return to commit. This can be a previous command, a line of code or even the contents of the system’s memory (!).

It’s a really interesting form of direct manipulation that I have only ever seen matched by “document” style interfaces like Matlab, R etc.

If anyone is interested, I’ll do a write up later with some videos or something.

Re: Learning from Terminals to Design the Future of User Interfaces

#13

Post by KirinDave »

So to sum up, Terminals Are So Responsive & Fast Users Always Feel It [1]. Animations are bad because they take too long but add no value [2], and terminals render non-english characters super well [3].

I've been researching for a bit, and actually research on how to make a "good" and "accessible" terminal interface is pretty thin on the ground. You can find a lot of opinions but very few with any data backing them.

[1]: They're not. https://danluu.com/term-latency/

[2]: They do add value in helping direct user attention. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/animation-usability/

[3]: Right-to-left is still poorly supported by shells, and the installation and support process for custom glyphs in terminals is often extremely complicated.

Re: Learning from Terminals to Design the Future of User Interfaces

#14

Post by antome »

The first thing I do when I get a new Android phone, or update the OS, is disable all animations. As a consequence, my Nexus 5X is in some respects more responsive than many flagship phones today. Sometimes animation can feel nice, but after using a piece of software more than a few times, I'm much more interested in responsiveness.

Re: Learning from Terminals to Design the Future of User Interfaces

#16

Post by GlenTheMachine »

micheljansen wrote: post #11

I recently got gifted an old Commodore PET. It boots straight into BASIC, so anything you type can be a command or a program, but what’s even cooler is the way the console (they call it “monitor”) works. If you press “up”, rather than scrolling through past commands one by one like in Bash, DOS etc. the cursor simply goes up the screen. You can modify anything you see and hit return to commit. This can be a previous…

IIRC all Commodore machines did this. The C64 did. That's how you edited a program: you LIST'ed it, and then scrolled up and changed the lines on the screen. When you hit ENTER the new line overwrote the original one.

The C64 did not have any way to directly show or edit system memory, though. That's cool.

Re: Learning from Terminals to Design the Future of User Interfaces

#17

Post by yiyus »

micheljansen wrote: post #11

I recently got gifted an old Commodore PET. It boots straight into BASIC, so anything you type can be a command or a program, but what’s even cooler is the way the console (they call it “monitor”) works. If you press “up”, rather than scrolling through past commands one by one like in Bash, DOS etc. the cursor simply goes up the screen. You can modify anything you see and hit return to commit. This can be a previous…

You may like Acme: https://research.swtch.com/acme

Re: Learning from Terminals to Design the Future of User Interfaces

#18

Post by jasonkostempski »

jwr wrote: post #6

Yes! I am so glad somebody called out the UI animations! The one in 1Password bugs me every time, I don't use Spaces because it takes too long for the animations to play out. There are more examples. Every time a programmer adds an animation, a settings option should also be added to "disable animations". Advanced users will love you for it!

I have a Wells Fargo auto loan. Their site is separate from the main Wells Fargo site. They have no animations (not even spinners) and basic web forms. The site feels so fast compared to other sites it's jarring. I often feel the need to double check that what I just did actually got applied because it feels like someone is presenting a mock UI demo with static images.

Re: Learning from Terminals to Design the Future of User Interfaces

#19

Post by arg84 »

Ironic that the author uses up 2/3 of valuable screen space for the title of the article when a much smaller size would have sufficed. It took me extra time to scroll down to the main content. This just goes to show that aesthetics have more value than perhaps the author is conscious of.

Re: Learning from Terminals to Design the Future of User Interfaces

#20

Post by [deleted] »

micheljansen wrote: post #11

I recently got gifted an old Commodore PET. It boots straight into BASIC, so anything you type can be a command or a program, but what’s even cooler is the way the console (they call it “monitor”) works. If you press “up”, rather than scrolling through past commands one by one like in Bash, DOS etc. the cursor simply goes up the screen. You can modify anything you see and hit return to commit. This can be a previous…

[deleted]
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