Talk:User interface

Edits done on 26 June 2005

I reverted some parts of edits done by GeneMosher on 26 June 2005. There were no errors in them per se, I just wished to keep the text concise and reflect the most common use of the term (by deferring mentions of touchscreens as so far touch isn't that much more common that other "minority modalities"). Please edit the page or comment here if you disagree. Aapo Laitinen June 28, 2005 21:46 (UTC)

Can't say your narrowmindedness and your comfort with censorship appeals to me

So you're a Human Computer-Interaction Student? Well, well. Let me tell you who I am. I designed a touchscreen interface paradigm that has been copied the world over and covers the globe. Millions of people use it. Just about every touchscreen interface in the world borrows freely and liberally from my work, none of which was patented and none of which requires royalties. And you don't think my mention of touchscreens in a discussion of user interfaces is noteworthy. You can surely understand my position if I think you have your head up your ass.

Every time I walk into a restaurant I see people using touchscreens and the software paradigm that I developed 20 years ago. Every time I go into the post office I see touchscreens. In supermarkets, I see people using touchscreens to cash out their own purchases. In many of the new cars I see people using touchscreens. On all the new consumer electronics gear I see touchscreens replacing buttons, knobs & dials. In the library, I see people checking out materials with touchscreens. The latest airplanes all have touchscreens. And you have the nerve to dismiss all of this? It's clear that you don't get out much. There are 4,000 stories in Google News today worldwide with the word touchscreen or touch-screen in them. I don't think you have any idea what the concept of User Interface means in 2005. And you think you're going to tell us all about user interfaces on the cell phones and the airplanes they're designing and building today without talking about touchscreens? Let us all know how that goes, won't you? It should be quite a laugh. GeneMosher

Denigratory comments serve no purpose

Mosher, your response isn't what I'd expect from a person of your credentials. In particular, accusations of censorship are entirely uncalled for.

Regarding your assertion that I didn't value your "mention of touchscreens in a discussion of user interfaces", I stand by my opinion that in the context where you made the mentions, they did not add value to the text. I tend to apply "when in doubt, leave it out" guideline to editing in addition to punctuation, and therefore removed the mentions. However, I do recognize this isn't an official Wikipedia guideline and I do think the mentions of touchscreens aren't harmful either, so I restored some of them.

I think you're overstating the importance of touchscreens in present day life. Though they are ubiquitous in several fields, they are still a sideline in the grand scale of things. I'd like to clarify that I'm not at all against getting more material about them to Wikipedia, only that I disagree about a bit of copyediting. I look forward to enjoying your constructive contributions.

In conclusion, I admit that my partial revert may have been unnecessary. However, it was done in good faith and I do think it had at least some justification and that the tone of your comment was insulting enough to warrant an apology or further evidence to support your assertion of my cluelesness. Aapo Laitinen June 29, 2005 16:23 (UTC)

I think you should not try to make this about me or my style

I didn't erase any of your efforts or contribution. You did erase mine. That's the difference here. If I don't like what you've done and tell you so by providing so many examples then you ought to be able to deal with that. It's damned arrogant of you to praise your own writing and your erasure of my writing as "good faith" while you dismiss my writing, a simple mention of touchscreens, as without value. And it's damned pious of you to take offense to writing which includes a comprehensive list of all the ways that touchscreens are being used to revolutionize user interfaces in every country of the world.

If you don't like to read about touchscreens in the news then customize your Google News by putting -touchscreen and -'touch screen' keywords in your filter so none of the thousands of daily stories about touchscreens will ever show up as you read the news. You can shape the news you read and interpret it any way you like.

One thing before I get the hell out of your yard. There are billions of people on this planet who can't read, can't write, can't afford a computer, can't do ANY of what you and I do every day. Who in hell is going to design a user interface to a world full of useful, easy to use software for illiterate people without PCs? Well, I can do it - I am doing it, and, fortunately, what Wikipedia's article on User Interface says or doesn't say about touchscreens has absolutely no bearing on it. I can provide illiterate people with a way to benefit from software and work together in a 21st century manner without putting a single computer within ten thousand miles of any of them and without requiring them to learn to read and write. I can do that because of what I have achieved with touchscreen user interfaces but I can't do it if I have to waste my time trying to get a few hundred million PC-uber-alles people and keyboard/mouse-uber-alles people the hell out of the way. You keep the words pretty - that's your job, apparently. GeneMosher

Blowing this out of proportion, aren't we?

This article is my yard as little as it is yours. I still don't see which effort I happened to erase, I don't think my erasures went beyond copyediting some paragraphs. The important word here is context. In my opinion, touchscreens are relevant in the context of this article, but not in the context of each and every paragraph of the article. Your contributions are welcome (and what would it matter if I didn't welcome them?). For example, some issues you mentioned above could easily be included in the article. I will elaborate my reply after work. Aapo Laitinen June 30, 2005 05:08 (UTC)

It's a bit hard for me to not make this about your style, since your style seems to be about making this about me. Not to mention typecasting me as a member of a mouse mob that is out there to repress the illiterate people of the world. If you assumed me to be a reasonable person of normal intelligence, this discussion could be resolved in just a few sentences.

I just double-checked if I was missing something crucial and I do think I made a sound call. Your edits consisted of adding a mention of touchscreens to a paragraph about "user interface (of a computer program)", adding a mention of touchscreens to a list item about graphical user interfaces, and rewording a list item about touch interfaces. Together, they were less than a dozen words. Of these three points, I thought the last one was a clear improvement. The remaining two points, on the other hand, added in my opinion unnecessary mentions of touchscreens to where the mentions improve neither understanding nor comprehensiveness.

I did back those edits, but I also posted a note indicating I would be interested in learning more about the rationale behind them. Which you've indeed provided (see my comment above, though).

I fail to see how the Google News metric is relevant to this discussion. For example, today the query "touch screen" OR touchscreen yields 1,600 results and computer mouse OR keyboard gives 3,100 results. If we do a Google web search with the same terms, the results are 3.5 million and 30 million. If you wish to present a more convincing argument along these lines, please provide references to actual statistics or research.

One of the points where I certainly agree with you is that touchscreens are not to be dismissed when it comes to information appliances etc. and as I indicate below (section Article cleanup), this article doesn't currently discuss them at all. So intead of trying to inject touchscreens to context where they currently have hardly any relevance (user interfaces for general-purpose computing), could you please consider refocusing your efforts to expanding this article and thus providing a context where they do matter already (user interfaces of information appliances)?

My goal has never to disrespect you or to marginalize your expertise. I wish you'd return the same courtesy to me. If you take an another look at the structure of this article, you may begin to see my point about contexts.

Respectfully, Aapo Laitinen June 30, 2005 15:22 (UTC)

Article cleanup

I decided to kickstart the cleanup. I hope this new version is an improvement. I find it still it has at least the following problems:

• The definition doesn't feel right
• The further reading list too long compared to the scope of the article. A shorter list of recommended introductory reading might be better?
• Some problems with expression

Aapo Laitinen 12:55, 2005 Apr 5 (UTC)

• The section about usability should mention ergonomics too
• Should include a section about user interfaces outside computing (e.g. cell phones, set-top boxes)
• Should include a section about man-machine interfaces (e.g. airplanes, control rooms)

Aapo Laitinen 21:00, 2005 Apr 7 (UTC)

Vandalism

I tried reverting the vandalism (07:45, 30 October 2010), but it seems I am doing more harm than good, so someone should take a look at it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.25.184.131 (talk)

The date for the "Graphical user interface, 1981 to present" notation is wrong....

The 3-Rivers Computing "PERQ" GUI computer was shown to the public in July 1980 and started commercial sales in August, 1980, so that date should be 1980 and not 1981. The Xerox Star GUI computer did not go on sale till later in April, 1981, the PERQ was the first to be sold, not the STAR.

"Qualia interface"

@Cale McCollough: This article mentions something called a "qualia interface," but I haven't found any uses of this phrase outside of Wikipedia. Have any authors or researchers used this term before? Jarble (talk) 21:45, 19 May 2020 (UTC)