WYGISWS
Shouldn't that be WYSIWYG?
Not necessarily. The usability blog written by Jakob Nielsen which I cited in an earlier post about blog content also had an article entitled "R.I.P. WYSIWYG," suggesting that the end of the "what you see is what you get" approach to designing user interfaces (UI) is upon us.
The crux of the article is that the next step is results-oriented UI, wherein users can direct software to format a document to look like a magazine article rather than have to work out for themselves the incremental commands to make it so. The goal is to free people from having to design something from the bottom up.
The example cited is the new UI for Microsoft Office, which certainly looks pretty interesting. It might even work. Any skepticism on my part is purely attributable to my working on an Excel workbook lately wherein three spreadsheets are configured exactly the same, and yet only two of them behave the same way when I am entering text and data.
Mr Nielsen presumably would suggest that the goal of results-oriented UI is to avoid this type of inconsistency. It might be more accurate to suggest that this example points to the risk of too much faith that the designers and coders will actually come up with the right framework all, or even most, of the time.
I'd also be more inclined to believe that results-oriented UIs could solve these kinds of problems, had I not worked with people who couldn't reliably save files so that they could be identified or even found again, or who could create documents with formatting errors so pervasive that the only solution for getting something appropriate for delivery to clients was to start again, by re-keying the original text and data manually.
As appealing as a jazzy new UI might be (and believe me, I find it pretty appealing), in reality, when results-oriented office software finally hits the street, I suspect that mega corporations such as the employer of your humble correspondent (etc.) will still have to employ staff to set up template formats for given documents. And I suspect that people will still find ways to completely shred those formats.
I'd suggest that Microsoft try and find some of these people who are genuinely gifted in their ability to break office software, but it would might cause organizational cognitive dissonance so great as to cause an implosion. Who would want that on their hands?
Not necessarily. The usability blog written by Jakob Nielsen which I cited in an earlier post about blog content also had an article entitled "R.I.P. WYSIWYG," suggesting that the end of the "what you see is what you get" approach to designing user interfaces (UI) is upon us.
The crux of the article is that the next step is results-oriented UI, wherein users can direct software to format a document to look like a magazine article rather than have to work out for themselves the incremental commands to make it so. The goal is to free people from having to design something from the bottom up.
The example cited is the new UI for Microsoft Office, which certainly looks pretty interesting. It might even work. Any skepticism on my part is purely attributable to my working on an Excel workbook lately wherein three spreadsheets are configured exactly the same, and yet only two of them behave the same way when I am entering text and data.
Mr Nielsen presumably would suggest that the goal of results-oriented UI is to avoid this type of inconsistency. It might be more accurate to suggest that this example points to the risk of too much faith that the designers and coders will actually come up with the right framework all, or even most, of the time.
I'd also be more inclined to believe that results-oriented UIs could solve these kinds of problems, had I not worked with people who couldn't reliably save files so that they could be identified or even found again, or who could create documents with formatting errors so pervasive that the only solution for getting something appropriate for delivery to clients was to start again, by re-keying the original text and data manually.
As appealing as a jazzy new UI might be (and believe me, I find it pretty appealing), in reality, when results-oriented office software finally hits the street, I suspect that mega corporations such as the employer of your humble correspondent (etc.) will still have to employ staff to set up template formats for given documents. And I suspect that people will still find ways to completely shred those formats.
I'd suggest that Microsoft try and find some of these people who are genuinely gifted in their ability to break office software, but it would might cause organizational cognitive dissonance so great as to cause an implosion. Who would want that on their hands?
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