[ba-ohs-talk] The Humane Environment
http://humane.sourceforge.net/jefweb-compiled/humaneenvironment/index.html (01)
"When [Jeff] Raskin created the Macintosh project at Apple, his fundamental
insight was to design a popular-price product starting from the human
interface. Instead of starting with the sexiest processor or the coolest
operating system as others did, he went from the user's needs to creating
hardware and software to support the desired interaction. Combining
then-current trends (many of which had been developed or improved at Xerox
PARC) with his own interface inventions (such as click-and-drag for making
arbitrary selections and moving objects), and the work of many colleagues,
the result of Raskin's project became a major factor in the industry
changeover to the modern Graphic User Interface (GUI). Computers became
much easier to learn, and accessible to a wider range of users. (02)
But interfaces have not moved with changing times. After a decade of
research into cognitive psychology and by paying attention to people's
constant computer complaints (and his own annoyance), Raskin realized that
today's GUIs are fundamentally flawed. The interface-building tools that
companies and open-source prouducts provide enforce bad interface design
practices. They are wrong. Period. Raskin figured out how to fix the
problems. His popular book, The Humane Interface (Addison-Wesley, 2000)
explains all this in some detail. (03)
Now, a few of Raskin's ideas have been turned into usable, open-source,
open-ended software so that you can try them for yourself. The initial
system, built without funding (or the chains that come along with it), when
described, doesn't sound like much. It consists of a Python programming
environment that is also a word processor, or perhaps the other way around
(in any case, it's its own IDE), and which has some other interesting
abilities. But two things about it take it far beyond this pedestrian
description: its user interface and its API. (04)
The Humane Environment (THE) is as easy to learn as a GUI (or easier) yet
as fast to use (or faster) than the command-line systems we struggle to
learn but love to use. It is easier to add new software to than any
previous interface-based system. (05)
Important observation: You cannot make an interface better without making
it different (that's obvious). If it's a lot better, it will be a lot
different. This means that it will feel unfamiliar to anybody familiar with
present interfaces. Therefore, it has to be used for a while (after you
read the manual) before you unlearn your present habits and can begin to
appreciate it. You are in a worse position for learning it than a novice
who has only to acquire new habits and has nothing to unlearn! (06)
But once you have learned THE, you will wish that all your software had at
least some of its interface features. This we guarantee; it happens every time. (07)
" (08)