What makes up a "User" in a Class Object? (was Well factored
Objects)
Darius
squeakuser at inglang.com
Thu May 1 22:14:11 UTC 2003
>> Why is there no persistent class representing the user in total?
>
>Squeak being a personal multimedia environment, it could probably be
>said that any image is some representation of the user.
And if I have more than one image... ??
Does that mean Im now User ver 3.5 ? :)
>> Isnt the most cherished person in our programming life, the "user", more
than an I/O port?
>>
>Because that's the bit you're interested in. If there's one sure sign
>of an object modeler type gone wrong, it is that he starts modeling
>reality without constraining himself with actual needs.
Generally true. Except in this case, the need (having gone unstated in my prior
posting) is to have all the right information in the right place w/o too much
effort finding it and too much effort organizing how its display.
UI & cognition concerns itself with the essentials of the very meaning of all
computer use needs and how to express them.
Its a need that users have a hard time expressing due to the psychological
principle that if its printed on paper or on a computer display, its suppose
to be that way and that its the best and only way.
Most dont know about or even imagine keystroke/mouse automation macros at an
OS level. Auto-complete is mostly in an OS. In Squeak we can search for and
text label on any morph/form. You cant do that in a MS Office application.
There you can search the help document and hope the help document has the text
label of the form/dialog box in it. Such a concept doesnt occur to a vast
majority of users and is hidden in Squeak to the casual user.
Is there a commonly known place in the Squeak environment where the user can
fill out a form to express himself that I dont like how this works in Squeak
& I dont know how to change it? And if they do make a change its only an
effect, another choice (of a great many) to make for the next user (do I need
or dont need rather than a model to be reused. Why they did it is only in the
comments, not in a model.
A user interface is a compression of a large amount of data into a very small
view port to that data and to the commands that operate on that data. Much of
whats hidden (the data, data nesting structure, the display format, and
potential operations on the data) remain in the users memory. So, there is
much more to a mouse movement than Where did it go?
A mouse movement can be very inefficient if it takes 30 mouse clicks, movements
crossing the entire display, and several different commands to put two pieces
of data together. But Squeak doesnt care. There is no representation
of thats too far for a user to go in Squeak.
One could say thats for a good UI designer to know. Another would say Wheres
the designers tool box so that everyone benefits from an experts knowledge?
Would one say there should be no Collection Object hierarchy since thats what
data structure designers should know how to do?
The interface is as essential to organizing knowledge as a Collection.
> Note that you do the same. If you hand your credit card to a
> warehouse clerk, all you are interested in is where that clerk's hand
> is and whether it already has taken hold of the card so you can let
> go. You couldn't care less about his email address.
But if his hand makes a copy of the card number & exp date of everyone whos
given him their card in the queue before me, I might not want to give him my
card no matter where his hand is! And Ill not let go if he does grab it!
>> Why dont we create class hierarchies of our GUIs to match the
>> already researched rules of cognitive science?
>
>Because cognitive science tells us the domain is too complex to be
>modeled by simple class hierarchies?
But OOP advertises itself a better because it more closely matches reality
and accommodates data and rules at any level of complexity. Is not Squeak
the idea processor, yet it remains ignorant of the process by which ideas are
created & expressed. Im not talking about the mathematical models but logical
models to efficiently answer the users questions of what, when, where,
and why and sometimes how and who.
>> Jef Raskins The Humane Interface
>Best laugh I had in a long time, this article. The guy steps up and
>invents Emacs/Vim with a lot of fanfare.
Very true. But dont forget, Emacs/Vim has only been for programmers - the
heavy data users & manipulators of the past. Most GUI & OS users have no clue
such a thing exists! Now everyone is a heavy data user but OS tools havent
grown to match.
Even Squeak claims to try to remove the line between user & programmer.
Educating the user to his/her new role and new needs hasnt grown to match.
Its the design with the intent of creating habits, efficient productive
habits thats important.
For example, how many OO programmers (or super-users) know the 7 +/- 2 rule of
thumb for not taxing short term memory? Or even better rules for not taxing
human limits.
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/g2699/0003/2699000312/print.jhtml
Its not a mathematical formula or algorithm... just a guide how objects could
be visually juxtaposed, sequentially presented over time, or categorized.
Keyword: Chunking. It can be applied to any menu, list, hierarchical outline,
number of windows, number of widgets, or number of minimized window title bars,
length of window, pages in a BookMorph. From that rule we also get the use of
white space in GeeMail Morphs, the use of bullet points, paragraphs and heading
in text, etc. There can be automated procedures for optimizing data
presentation time & space to facilitate an expressed purpose if given the
requirements and known human limits and preference... something a little better
than staggerPolicyString .
Web design brings this more to the publics attention; but, who would make the
link between a web designer and a Squeak user creating/manipulating morphs?
> As far as a 'multi-modal' interface is concerned, I do agree that
> Squeak relies a bit too much on the mouse alone. But also, I think
> that Squeak should have mouse gestures - there's a gesture recognizer
> in there after all, and I heard good reports on them. There's a lot
> of work to be done here...
Id say fundamentally essential work with a great payoff at the end in terms of
accessibility and popularity (of Squeak).
>From time to time I still astound folks with Alt-Tab, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-A,
and Ctrl-Shft-End along with other keyboard magic in the MS world.
Cheers,
Darius
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