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The best interface is no interface

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Re: The best interface is no interface

#21

Post by DenisM »

Symmetry wrote: post #9

While having no interface is a nice idea, I think that there's also something to be said for "Make common things easy, rare things possible." That is, it's great to try to eliminate the need for an interface, but you can't assume or even expect that you'll always succeed, so you have to have an interface anyway. Also, a lot of famous security vulnerabilities like the fact that Windows will execute things on a memory…

Re payments - consider situation where I keep going to the same coffee shop, and I just tell the barista to "add it to my tab" and then drink my coffee and leave. That would be very liberating, and I know the barista personally I would have no problem for them to keep the tab for me, and I would close it weekly or monthly.

Not so crazy now, iz it? If they could make it stretch to a point where I know the business but not the person working there, I'd be fine with it as well. And the system could learn typical usages, and close the tab for me automatically, or bring it up for review if needed.

Re: The best interface is no interface

#22

Post by jrajav »

mojuba wrote: post #18
jrajav wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't you want to own a Roombamower that could automatically mow your lawn after a few times around manually? Or a microwave that could recognize types of food with an internal camera, and suggest optimal cooking times based on total times you've done in the past? Maybe you'd rather stick with what you're comfortable with right now, but don't count out great ideas that you might not have thought of yet.

A microwave that can recognize food is not self-learning and I'm fine with that as far as it's predictable and does its job well. Roomba mower that learns - that's where it gets a bit scary. I wouldn't be comfortable with it because I wouldn't know how and what it learns from me, also how it reacts to changes in the area to be mowed. What if it learns from me to ignore anything (or anyone) that wasn't there during th…

I should hope it would include very paranoid and redundant safety systems going up from sucking in dust to cutting at high speed with blades, and that it wouldn't learn to override them! That's more about implementation than idea, though.

Re: The best interface is no interface

#23

Post by pbreit »

jrajav wrote: post #17
lake99 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The iPhone does not have just one button. It has several other buttons at the side, and it has a GUI. 2. The one-front-button deal is one of the many things I hate about iPhones. The "go back" operation is something we do often on smart phones. I want my phone to have that at the front. I also like trackballs there.

I often cite this as one example of how I find the Android interface more efficient and usable. "Go back" applies intuitively to such a broad range of apps, and benefits enough from a constant, ergonomic placement and tactile feedback, that that alone makes a difference in feel.

I hate, hate, hate that Android doesn't have a physical "home" button and instead those terrible soft system buttons. First, I pretty much never know which button to hit and what's going to happen. 2nd, they waste valuable space being unnecessarily "always on". And my kids are flat out unable to use my Nexus 7 without constantly accidentally hitting this buttons. Yuck, yuck, yuck.

Re: The best interface is no interface

#24

Post by mojuba »

jrajav wrote: post #22
mojuba wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A microwave that can recognize food is not self-learning and I'm fine with that as far as it's predictable and does its job well. Roomba mower that learns - that's where it gets a bit scary. I wouldn't be comfortable with it because I wouldn't know how and what it learns from me, also how it reacts to changes in the area to be mowed. What if it learns from me to ignore anything (or anyone) that wasn't there during th…

I should hope it would include very paranoid and redundant safety systems going up from sucking in dust to cutting at high speed with blades, and that it wouldn't learn to override them! That's more about implementation than idea, though.

Exactly, and see how quickly we switched to algorithm issues that presumably should override the self-learned part.

Re: The best interface is no interface

#25

Post by ProblemFactory »

jrajav wrote: post #15
mojuba wrote: post #13

Worst interface is one that's trying to learn about my habits without having a broader knowledge about my personality and the world as a whole. I don't want my axe to adapt to my hand and to my way of using it. Most of all I want my axe to be reliably predictable. So no, thank you, no self-learning climate control systems, microwaves or lawn mowers.

Wouldn't you want to own a Roombamower that could automatically mow your lawn after a few times around manually? Or a microwave that could recognize types of food with an internal camera, and suggest optimal cooking times based on total times you've done in the past? Maybe you'd rather stick with what you're comfortable with right now, but don't count out great ideas that you might not have thought of yet.

The problem with interfaces that learn from user behaviour is that they have to be almost perfect to be usable.

Simple, predictable interfaces that the user can understand and control are okay. Self-learning interfaces that do what the user wants are okay. But there is a gap between the two with poor (and even good but imperfect) learning interfaces.

A microwave that sets the timer itself would be great - unless it accidentally sets 5% of the meals on fire. Even a small failure rate is very frustrating, as the user cannot accurately predict and control their behaviour.

(It might be fine for a microwave - you can see that 20 minutes for a pack of popcorn is wrong, and cancel - but the same issues appear in many other interfaces.)

Re: The best interface is no interface

#26

Post by fatbird »

I have two criticisms of the article:

1. Every story is a 'just so' story where the way the system works is exactly the way the user wants the system to work. Great, it's like putting a button front and center on your app and the user wants to push that button and look! It's right there! Awesome. Except I don't want to push that button, I want to push the other button that's now hidden away because the designer is striving for "No UI". The new minimalist interface is now actively fighting me. What if I don't want my car to unlock when I approach it?

2. Using AI is a "step 2: ???" solution, and the flaw with it is best exemplified by the columnist who bought a pregnancy book for a pregnant friend on Amazon... and now his Amazon suggestion stream is now still filled with baby clothes that are age appropriate for his friend's baby, years later. For every adaptive step the non-interface takes on the basis of past behaviour, it's a step away from future behaviour that's different than past behaviour.

I suppose my criticisms come down to the fact that the article doesn't seem to acknowledge that design trade-offs are a normal part of interface work. It strongly implies there's a hallowed land where every use case is obvious and accounted for and we all just "do". Annoying, in the same way that we all get annoyed when another framework comes along and is in its silver bullet phase where it's the awesomest solution to everything you need it to do.

Re: The best interface is no interface

#27

Post by fatbird »

Symmetry wrote: post #9

While having no interface is a nice idea, I think that there's also something to be said for "Make common things easy, rare things possible." That is, it's great to try to eliminate the need for an interface, but you can't assume or even expect that you'll always succeed, so you have to have an interface anyway. Also, a lot of famous security vulnerabilities like the fact that Windows will execute things on a memory…

a lot of famous security vulnerabilities like the fact that Windows will execute things on a memory stick without being asked, are the result people trying for no interface.

This is an excellent observation.

Re: The best interface is no interface

#28

Post by AndrewNCarr »

gbadman wrote: post #19

In other words, the best UI is AI.

Reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXV-yaFmQNk (A Magazine Is an iPad That Does Not Work)

Not that I disagree, it is just fun to think about possible unintended consequences of dependency on AI for every day tasks. I am sure there are some short stories that deal with people in an advanced civilization losing their automation, but I can't seem to track any down on Google at the moment.

Re: The best interface is no interface

#29

Post by SolarUpNote »

kalleboo wrote: post #12

Is that list of steps to use Google Wallet in this article correct? If so, that wasn't the promise of NFC at all! I have an Android phone on which I use the legacy Japanese NFC system which doesn't require waking up the phone at all (it even works if the battery is depleted). He says that tapping a device against another one is undesirable, but I think people like that kind of "I have to do this for money to disappea…

I can picture it now :D

Me: "This isn't what I ordered."

Cashier: "It's what you ordered last time. We went ahead and made it for you. And we also charged your account. Aren't you delighted?"

Me: "But I just wanted a coffee. Now my account is overdrawn, and you just cost me a $35 overdraft fee."

Re: The best interface is no interface

#30

Post by mcguire »

mojuba wrote: post #13

Worst interface is one that's trying to learn about my habits without having a broader knowledge about my personality and the world as a whole. I don't want my axe to adapt to my hand and to my way of using it. Most of all I want my axe to be reliably predictable. So no, thank you, no self-learning climate control systems, microwaves or lawn mowers.

"Worst interface is one that's trying to learn about my habits without having a broader knowledge about my personality and the world as a whole."

I'm a big fan of self-learning systems, in many cases. Tivo? I love it. A self-learning climate control system? Sure, as long as I can override it if I'm leaving for a week in January, for example.

Now picture a robotic lawn mower without that broader knowledge of the world. If it has limited sensors, it may mow over things you don't want it to; even if it does it less than you do yourself, it's a problem. How about if it cannot self-diagnose situations where it should not be working or has some of its safety features disabled for some reason?

For some equipment, being able to operate independently is a much harder problem than simply learning where the mowable area of your lawn is.

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