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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Idea for KDE 4 - global, smooth zoom feature.
From:       "Aaron J. Seigo" <aseigo () kde ! org>
Date:       2005-05-25 21:42:42
Message-ID: 200505251542.50977.aseigo () kde ! org
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On Wednesday 25 May 2005 02:06, Diego Moya (a.k.a. TuringTest) wrote:
> > trying to present everything along 2 different metaphores seems to me to
> > be rather antiproductive.
>
> That's a valid concern. The original "Humane Interface" ZUI proposal
> was supposed to completely replace windows. Related areas would be
> achieved with smaller boxes inside boxes to which you could zoom in.

boxes, windows ... the difference is 2D vs 3D, and i really don't see us being 
able to flatten the desktop down to 2D. it's actually going  the OTHER way 
(additional dimensions) with things like presence (which introduces a time 
element) and embedded documents.

looking at the depth and breadth of information we manage via computers today, 
i just do not see zooming interfaces being able to be kept pure. this is my 
same complaint against spatial interfaces in general. they work nice for 
kiosks, ATMs .. that sort of thing, because they are limited, simple and well 
defined before hand.

we can get rid of stacked windows by increasing the section of the plane we 
represent to the user, but we can't diminish the dimensions between data. 
that's the real issue at hand IMHO.

not to mention you'd need one hell of a plane section to show the files on my 
system ;)

> The concept of "clones" (similar to soft links) could be used to have
> different, alternate mappings at the same time.
>
> The advantage of Zooming User Interfaces over windows is that they're
> truly "spatial", you can use positional memory to remember where
> things were located. 

spacial tops out. do you remember where everything in your house is? i know i 
don't. i often have to look for things. and even after years of living in 
this city, i still have a street map for when i go somewhere i haven't been 
before or go very often. spacial is great for small sets of data, not the 
data warehouses that our PCs (let alone LANs) have become.

in this case, i think Raskin was out to lunch.

everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler (- Einstein). IMHO 
Raskin was trying to make things simple beyond "possible". thankfully 
simplicity is not the only route to usability.
 
-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

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