Future AmigaOS GUI

[z5]

@Tickly:

I was thinking about the visual aspect. For using it, there need to be more screens and indeed that "all in one super gadget" is not a good idea.

But at least he is an artist. The default OS4 (allthough Matthew from Zeoneo did say that it was not finished and that time was too short for the demo) looks extremely dull, boring, outdated. Indeed, they have succeeded in what they were trying to do: make it look like an Amiga. (from which the last official GUI look is from 1992 or so).

[teo]

@tickly

Note: This post is all IMHO, and indeed subjective

Of course, all comments appreciated, especially criticism.

Re: The curved window border at top. windows and macs now both come default with the same design, as do many linux distros as well. Im a fan of it but its all personal opinions anyway.

Re: The close gadget, yup its a shocker, suggest a better one and ill put it up.

Re: The multi gadget, it would not be right for all people considering newbies. I like it but perhaps a configurable system would be in order including all over window fucntions. As far as professional human-interface experts going crazy, actually windows is already doing it (ive used it for years but only just noticed that its the same thing implemented differently) and im sure they have many "experts" (giggles)... They use the entire title bar however. Click to focus, click+drag to move, double click to maximise and right click for window menu, try it! In practice its great and not confusing, infact its extremely intuitive. Perhaps we can consider that model, and steal then improve on that idea instead of it being the other way around as usual.

@z5
All credit for the bg image if for cojo, you will find the background image in the a.org images under full screen workbench backgrounds.

[xeron]

The default OS4 (allthough Matthew from Zeoneo did say that it was not finished and that time was too short for the demo) looks extremely dull, boring, outdated.

Thats just the thing. To me it looks great; not to over the top, and it looks much, much BETTER than OS X or WIndows XP's default themes to me, and they are supposed to be 'modern'. I really like it.

[xeron]

teotwin wrote:
windows is already doing it (ive used it for years but only just noticed that its the same thing implemented differently) and im sure they have many "experts"

Actually, Microsoft are one of the worst companies at creating interfaces. Pretty much everything they make has shocking human interface howlers!

There was a great "User Interface Hall of Shame" at iarchitect.com, but the site seems to have since disappeared. Luckily the wayback machine has a mirror. (click hall of shame on the left). There are quite a few Microsoft programs in there.

[NewRevolution]

Actually, Microsoft are one of the worst companies at creating interfaces. Pretty much everything they make has shocking human interface howlers!

That is your words Tickly.  If you had any idea of how much effor Microsoft puts into their usability testing, you would be surprised.

HCI and Usability are key aspects of developing a GUI and underlaying layers of OS. I would like to hear what those shocking human interface howlers are. Um.. never mind :-)

I think Microsoft has done one H¤%& of a job designing the XP interface. XP is a very advanced system, and makeing it usable to all users demands a lot of usability testing.

Read some of my other threads in other discussions and you will find a link about how they went about going from Win 3.11 to Win95. Pretty interesting reading.

When it comes to Usability, Accessibility and HCI, I get interested. Was one of my favourite subjects at school :-D And I hope I get a job working with it - there are a lot of bad interfaces out there!

[mdwh2]

teotwin wrote:
@mdwh2
Thats a problem that already exists for all of the window gadgets anyway, the multi-gadget would not try to solve this, all its doing is reducing the number of gadgets and clutter.

True, it's not a bad idea, but operations such as bringing-to-front, moving and/or resizing (preferably all of them) need to additionally be possible over a larger area than just a single gadget (eg, the title bar, boundary or preferably the entire window). The idea of using a key modifier to move/resize by clicking anywhere within the window is a good one (although I'd still like to keep the more standard methods of moving and resizing by clicking on the titlebar/boundary, without having to use a key modifier).

[xeron]

That is your words Tickly.  If you had any idea of how much effor Microsoft puts into their usability testing, you would be surprised.

To quote the iarchitect hall of shame:

"Unfortunately for the user, interface design at Microsoft is now the responsibility of graphics artists rather than interface designers. It should come as no surprise then, that Microsoft is far and away the most frequent contributor to the Interface Hall of Shame."

[SnowBord]

unchartered:

yepp i am sure.. a quick search on the net revealed this site;

Heres the link

[SnowBord]

Tickly

Actually, Microsoft are one of the worst companies at creating interfaces. Pretty much everything they make has shocking human interface howlers!

I wouldnt say that.  the UI exhibits great affordance, good direct manipulation abilities and mappings, tends to support the human cognitive model in respect to iconic and other pictoral representations (in the right amount too, may I add - not an excess), as well as eploying good attention grabbing techniques (colour changing AND blinking), to name a few.

The UI is consistent with great colour separation, widget layouts generally appropriately positioned (like centered OK / CANCEL buttons, something the amiga lacks, and lets not start on UI consistency..)
i would say it IS user-centric.
I am sure they are not randomly bashing out a UI without thorough involvement from an army of HCI experts and cognitive scientists..

In future, please justify WHY the windows UI is a bad one, apart from the anal 'it's not Amiga'.
Oh, and that some unknown web site written by schoolkids claims it.

Don't get me wrong.. I LOVE Amiga, and it pains me to see it so far behind.  My only hope is that now progress IS being made, the foundations have been laid, and we can only pick up momentum once more!

[SKAN]

Cool indeed!!!

Massimo Tantignone (author of VisualPrefs) did  this years ago. Maybe it's too naive by now, but I think it's still a good design. So Amiga!!! ;-)

SKAN

[Bodie]

@SKAN

I like, reminds of the original OS4 screenshots at os.amiga.com (in some twisted way .

[NewRevolution]

I could not have said it better SnowBord. :-)

Just out of curiosity. Does anyone know if Amiga Inc. are performing any usability testing for their OS4? Taking a look at the "official" screenshots of OS4 doesn't really impress me.

I believe there should be done some improvement on the widget layouts in generall (if I've understood what widgets are) and then some.

Come to think of it, does Amiga Inc. have any HCI or Usability engineers at all in their team? Or are they just CxOs and a bunch of coders?

And how is OS4 designed for people with disabilities like hand coordination (mouse), bad sight, blind etc.

That last one was just thinking aloud :-D

[SnowBord]

also, is it me or does the screenmode requester totally need a facelift??
amigas no longer have Low-Res and High-Res listed there..
theres no need for one long list of display drivers and resolutions, frequencies, colours etc. in one pane (listview was it on amiga?? heh!)

a list of displays should be one, then a scrollbar for the resolution, and a cycle gadget for the colour depth and another for the monitor frequency..
so much easier!!  i dont understand how they let this blaring omission slip!!

oh, and NewRevolution, don't get ahead of yourself m8  :-) lets just get the UI aspect established, as well as the OS before we start to cater for exceptional cases (in a tiny market like this, i doubt its crucial).
but valid point, one day maybe...

[xeron]

SnowBord wrote:
In future, please justify WHY the windows UI is a bad one, apart from the anal 'it's not Amiga'.

I never claimed the Amiga was perfect. In fact, the multitude of GUI toolkits available makes the Amiga pretty bad on the consistency front; probably only beaten by the X-Windows world with its myriad of GUI toolkits, and window managers.

Oh, and that some unknown web site written by schoolkids claims it.

You've obviously not been to the site. IArchitect.com was NOT written by schoolkids.

From the introduction:

"Isys Information Architects Inc. specializes in the design and development of robust, highly usable information systems. Isys focuses on ease of use, recognizing that software should assist the user in the performance of some task rather than becoming a task in itself. Isys was founded by Brian Hayes, a former professor of Industrial Engineering, and system design consultant whose clients have included AT&T, General Electric, General Motors, Lucent Technologies, NASA, Siemens, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Army. "

[xeron]

Incidentally, if you are after specific examples, here are a few. Bear in mind that because they were done by Microsoft, who create a lot of "industry standard" applications, a lot of them are just accepted as standard.

I am not of the opinion that everything Microsoft makes is immediately rubbish, and I also don't bash them for no reason, and I do recognise a lot of positive things they have done.

1) With the introduction of IE4 and Win98 (and continued since), Microsoft took away the borders of buttons in some (but not all) toolbars and made them appear only when the pointer was over them. They also extended this "appearing border" to menus. This is immediately a bad idea; buttons should always appear as buttons, and act as so when pressed. This is common sense, but once again usability is sacrificed for the "cool" factor.

2) Since Office 97 (i think, maybe 2000), lesser-used menu items are removed from menus until they are "maximised" with a special button that appears at the base. This is to present new users with less options and reduce clutter. A good idea, you may think, until you realise that it "learns" which options you use most, and hides the rest. For someone who is not computer literate, menus suddenly changing their layout is a bad idea, and possibly confusing. Also bear in mind that the "maximise" button isn't necessarily obvious to a beginner, who might be reticent to click it, and assume an option is "lost" forever.

3) With IE 6, the picture view mode has special options that appear when the mouse is hovered over it. Besides the fact that these are buggy, and can leave trails when scrolling, all the options are ALREADY available from a simple context menu. These particular pop-ups are unlike any other pop-up i've seen in any other MS application.

4) Up until quite recently, quite a lot of Microsoft programs (Word being a good example) would have action buttons relevant to the whole dialog placed within the borders of a tab page. This is an unnecessary ambiguity that only serves to confuse. You could say "oh, but this was fixed with Windows 95", except that it was present in Word right up to at least Office '97!

There are loads more. I suggest you go take a look at the site :-D

[SnowBord]

my point stands. i know what i'm talking about.

besides.. industrial engineering and system design is all about the underlying 'systems', not the user interface.  so he is from an engineering backgound, not an HCI one.  he seems to be a consultant for 'how to build a good conceptual model of a system' - essentially DESIGN.
i studied Object Oriented Systems analysis and design, and although (these days) the book had some HCI considerations, it was mostly about analysing a set of requirements, developing a system (on paper) then handing this over to the coding team.

again, nothing to do with HCI.  and anyway, your quote is a company slogan, a marketing ploy to draw customers in if you wish.
microsoft claims each windows has no bugs and is faster etc. etc.
the PS2 had an 'EMOTION ENGINE' which was meant to make you so drawn into the game with emotion etc.
all marketing.
judging from the spiel they spout about the interface and their ahem... 'reasoning' behind it, i'd say they made that up on the spot too.

i am not saying the founder is bad at his job.. its just that his job is helping teams turn requirements and specifications into design.