Alan Kay [Alan.Kay at disney.com] wrote:
> I think this is a good route (one of them anyway ...). I'd like to 
> see Squeak have a nice look -- but I don't have any particular 
> interest in imitating Mac or Windows (both of which I think are 
> pretty ugly). Can the Squeak list put forth some designs that are 
> more than skins?

As someone who grew up in the GUI world on Stars and Dandelions, and
used to design UIs for engineers (who were affraid of computers), I'd
like to proffer a few opinions about factors.  I'm not Donald Norman,
but here goes:

1. Don't invent new paradigms where the brain doesn't already have
one.  This is the danger in things like Kai Power Tools, it's pretty,
but it's not "familiar."  This is where the *basic* idea of folders
and files on the original Mac GUI went, and it was a (largely) similar 
idea on the Star.

2. Know your audience.  Who is the UI for?  Developers want all kinds
of things that no sane user would ever want.  All "unified" interfaces 
are a compromise.  The key to success is understanding who you want to 
use it, and what yo uare willing to compromise to get sometimes
desparate groups on the same UI.

3. Don't use metaphors if they're not truly real.  The most
frustrating thing to tell someone is "foo is like bar," when that
similarity is only "skin deep," and they are unable to translate a
majority of their ideas.  

These are a few of my ideas on design in general, I'm sure Alan has
plenty. :-)  

Now, I'm a new Squeaker (though a long time *talker), and I'll just
make some blatant over generalizations and recommendations. :-)

While Alan says that current UIs are ugly (and I largely agree), I
think it' not their "appearance" you want to steal, but some of their
sucessful interfaction model.  One of the keys to the sucess of the
Mac (traditionally, less so in newer releases, sadly) was thta it was
a multi-tiered iterface.  It provided a very basic interface to the
introductory user, but it provided a lot of power to a more advanced
user---without cluttering the novice's interface.  This is a difficult 
thing to achieve, but I think that it's a good goal.

Secondly while I like the concept of flaps, I find them insanely
difficult to get to show up when I want---or more importantly not show 
up when I don't want them :-)  Startling to say the least.  Morphic is 
cool, but... it can be a bit unsettling as well.  I think the answer
lies in again, exposing two levels.  Simple things (resizing a window) 
should be blatantly obvious, more compelx thing (inspecting?) can be
more "hidden".

Finally, some work could be done to provide more discoverable
interface (see above).  I find myself continually double clicking on a 
minimalized Morph, and (in MVC) getting the label editor, or in
Morphic, nothing :-)  maddening :-)

Anyway, I'm sure this isn't terribly beneficial, but just some things
I try and follow personally.

Chris
-- 
| Christopher Petrilli
| petrilli at amber.org