Should computers be peripheral devices?
Bruce Bathurst
houses during her precious "off" hours, recently said she was
buying a computer. She wanted to know what kind to get. "What
do you need it for?"
"Well, everything all the others are using it for: word processing
(she types an occasional contract on her manual typewriter),
WordPerfect--it allows boiler plates; a database program to keep
track of my renters; Lotus 123 to help me make financial decisions;
some small-business accounting programs to keep my expenses in line;
an electronic tax program; maybe a Gant chart; a pop-up calendar,
..."
She had been reading PC magazines.
Are computers to be used this way? Shouldn't human factors be
concerned about the use of computers to improve an individual's
"quality of life"? Were we to do things by hand, as we did very
well before 1980, a few things would most definitely be better
done by a computer--but not ALL things.
Should computer should be a calendar, a book, a calculator, or a
notepad? Or should a computer be a peripheral device, if you
wish, to your self, pencil, and (recycled) paper tablet? I
can't even proofread writing on anything but paper, nor can I
make the scribbles and notes I like to. Should computers be at
the center of our desks, or on the edge of them, with the
rulers, pencil jars, and staplers?
It's worse than merely having computers become another hated
time-saving device:
Young "servers" working in fast-food restaurants can't read, but
they can press the picture of a Big Blip; young secretaries
can't write, but they use a wordprocessor and spelling and
grammar checker; young clerks can't count change, but they can
whisk the bag of potatoes past the bleeping light. Whoops, our
children can read, write, or calculate! (Nor, oddly, do the see
the purpose of doing so.)
Is this a good use of computers for us? Or is it good only for
Blip Burger, who can exploit illiterate labor (and keep them
there)?
Everyone insists I know my "account number", and my NJ drivers
license number is 15 digits long. Are there really ten thousand
million people who drive in NJ, or does it just seem that way?
Is this use of computers raising our quality of life?
Computers are no longer our tools, we are becoming the tools of
computers: parsers, at least. How did banks cope before?--they
used my name, and my address if my name wasn't unique. The
problem seems to be that computers don't parse words well, so
even mapping the few non-redundant numbers to nonsense phrases
(like "blue cows hate rolling codominia" = 20 14 58 73 96) would
be unacceptable to them: they demand that we become their
pre-processors.**
We are raising the quality of life of computers.
Has something gone wrong with human factors on a huge scale, or
is this just the ravings of a technophobe being dragged
screaming into the future?
---------
**Does someone understand this? If more than 5 pieces of
information are really necessary to buy a pair of socks,
why can't the computer look up the rest for itself?
Bruce (Gypsy Scholar)
--
Department of Geological and Geophysical Sciences
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
bath...@phoenix.princeton.edu bath...@pucc.bitnet !princeton!phoenix!bathurst
David Seah
>My cousin, who works in a grocery store, but buys and rents
>houses during her precious "off" hours, recently said she was
>buying a computer. She wanted to know what kind to get. "What
>do you need it for?"
>
>"Well, everything all the others are using it for: word processing
>(she types an occasional contract on her manual typewriter),
>WordPerfect--it allows boiler plates; a database program to keep
>track of my renters; Lotus 123 to help me make financial decisions;
>some small-business accounting programs to keep my expenses in line;
>an electronic tax program; maybe a Gant chart; a pop-up calendar,
>..."
>
>She had been reading PC magazines.
Valid reasoning on her part I would say.
>Are computers to be used this way? Shouldn't human factors be
>concerned about the use of computers to improve an individual's
>"quality of life"? Were we to do things by hand, as we did very
>well before 1980, a few things would most definitely be better
>done by a computer--but not ALL things.
>[SNIP]
>Young "servers" working in fast-food restaurants can't read, but
>they can press the picture of a Big Blip; young secretaries
>can't write, but they use a wordprocessor and spelling and
>grammar checker; young clerks can't count change, but they can
>whisk the bag of potatoes past the bleeping light. Whoops, our
>children can read, write, or calculate! (Nor, oddly, do the see
>the purpose of doing so.)
>
>Is this a good use of computers for us? Or is it good only for
>Blip Burger, who can exploit illiterate labor (and keep them
>there)?
Skirting the dangerous "what is good?" issue, one could say that the use of
computers allows illiterate labor to work and earn wages. Computers enable
Blip Burger to process far more customers per hour, meaning less waiting at
the register (getting the food is a different matter :).
The issue that you regard as dangerous is that of computers robbing our
youth of their motivation and self-interest. No longer do we have to count
or add...computers do that for us. Why learn when the computer can process and
speak aloud the Cliff Notes version of life in easy to swallow monosyllabic
words? It's a valid cause for worry, but pinning the blame on computers is
just a convenient scapegoat for our generation of nervous status-quo'ers.
Wasn't Rock and Roll supposed to bring our civillization crashing down with
the underwear crumpled around our ankles twenty years ago? I think we've
got to improve our educational environment to encourage self-motivation and
offer the spectrum of opportunity to everyone. Computers can, I believe,
assist considerably in this respect. But that's gettig off the subject...
>Everyone insists I know my "account number", and my NJ drivers
>license number is 15 digits long. Are there really ten thousand
>million people who drive in NJ, or does it just seem that way?
>
>Is this use of computers raising our quality of life?
I don't think it's raising our quality of life, but perhaps it does draw
attention to the deficiency of our accounting systems. We've got incredible
databases locked away, but we need to know the key so that we may partake of
their riches. But...
>Computers are no longer our tools, we are becoming the tools of
>computers: parsers, at least. How did banks cope before?--they
>used my name, and my address if my name wasn't unique. The
>problem seems to be that computers don't parse words well, so
>even mapping the few non-redundant numbers to nonsense phrases
>(like "blue cows hate rolling codominia" = 20 14 58 73 96) would
>be unacceptable to them: they demand that we become their
>pre-processors.**
>
>We are raising the quality of life of computers.
...the problem with keys is an old one: When you have valued or
important stuff, you need an excellent lock to protect it from casual
thievery. If the key falls into the wrong hands...hoo, boy. We could paint
a number of negative scenarios using the name/address method of ID.
Bruce: "I'm Bruce Bathurst. I'd like to withdraw my life savings."
Teller: "Certainly! It'll take just an hour. You can stand in that
corner with the potted palm trees while you wait."
Bruce: "An hour??? Don't you need my account number or some form of ID?"
Teller: "Well, if we used computers, we might need one of those arbitrarily
long numbers you see in the SciFi movies, but that's the FUTURE.
[she giggles] We'll just give Phil your name and he'll go look
it up and then walk next door to get your cash, sir."
Bruce: "But why does it take an hour?"
Teller: "Well, Phil (and you didn't hear it from me) is functionally
illiterate when it comes to looking up things in alphabetical
order. Plus, he's kinda short and can't reach the filing cabinets
that your name is in."
You know with all the hoopla about Notebook computers and Knowledge
Navigators and so on...it'll never fly unless we design the electronic
WALLET first. :-)
>Has something gone wrong with human factors on a huge scale, or
>is this just the ravings of a technophobe being dragged
>screaming into the future?
Unfortunately, it isn't Human Factors that gets applied on a global systems
scale. It's engineering and politics that are the tools of the world
builders, with HF dabbed artistically in places. T'is my feeling that HF is
headed in the right direction - we're dancing down the yellow brick road, so
to speak. But can Oz really exist? The world completely overseen by HF
principles is similar, one might imagine, to our vision of a cheery Utopia
"where everyone knows your name". I'm not sure if we'll ever achieve such a
thing (except maybe at the Tokyo Disneyland), but I'm sure we'll at least
drive through Suburban Oz :-)
>---------
>**Does someone understand this? If more than 5 pieces of
>information are really necessary to buy a pair of socks,
>why can't the computer look up the rest for itself?
>
>Bruce (Gypsy Scholar)
>--
>Department of Geological and Geophysical Sciences
>Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
>bath...@phoenix.princeton.edu bath...@pucc.bitnet !princeton!phoenix!bathurst
--
Dave Seah ^..^ | University of Rochester, Dept. of Electrical Engineering |
graduate student | Apple II Art & Graphics Forum Consultant, America Online |
////// Internet: se...@ee.rochester.edu ////// America Online: AFC DaveS //////
Bob Kerns
From: se...@ee.rochester.edu (David Seah)
Date: 8 Mar 92 17:13:07 GMT
In article <1992Mar8.1...@Princeton.EDU> bath...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Bruce Bathurst) writes:
> Computers are no longer our tools, we are becoming the tools of
> computers: parsers, at least. How did banks cope before?--they
> used my name, and my address if my name wasn't unique. The
> problem seems to be that computers don't parse words well, so
> even mapping the few non-redundant numbers to nonsense phrases
> (like "blue cows hate rolling codominia" = 20 14 58 73 96) would
> be unacceptable to them: they demand that we become their
> pre-processors.**
Actually, computers parse words perfectly well. The
reason for account numbers is basically that human names
aren't unique, and humans may have more than one account.
Computer storage used to be so expensive that it was well
worthwhile economically to save a few characters in the
unique names. Now, however, it would make a lot more sense
to use names that made sense. That is, your own personal
name plus a unique name the particular account, chosen by
you. Plus a password that you keep secret.
But banks tend to do things the way they always did things,
and don't do much innovation. Human factors aren't a big
thing with them. (Otherwise, they wouldn't put the ATM
down about a foot too low for me to use comfortably, and
then compound this by recessing it about a 16 inches into
the wall, so that the top of its 'window' obscures the screen
unless I bend over.)
Unfortunately, it isn't Human Factors that gets applied on a global systems
scale. It's engineering and politics that are the tools of the world
builders, with HF dabbed artistically in places. T'is my feeling that HF is
headed in the right direction - we're dancing down the yellow brick road, so
to speak. But can Oz really exist? The world completely overseen by HF
principles is similar, one might imagine, to our vision of a cheery Utopia
"where everyone knows your name". I'm not sure if we'll ever achieve such a
thing (except maybe at the Tokyo Disneyland), but I'm sure we'll at least
drive through Suburban Oz :-)
I agree, except that Tokyo Disneyland isn't particularly different
from the one in California. There's just fewer westerners, and
the signs are in Japanese.
From A to B
> Should computer should be a calendar, a book, a calculator, or a
> notepad? Or should a computer be a peripheral device, if you
> wish, to your self, pencil, and (recycled) paper tablet?
What's the point of having pencil and paper if you have a suitable computer?
I can't think of anything you can do with paper which you can't do with a
computer, except maybe light a fire or wipe your nose.
True, it may take several weeks (or even months) to learn to do things on
computer which you can do on paper. But remember that it takes us months to
learn the necessary skills to write crude sentences with paper and pencil.
> I
> can't even proofread writing on anything but paper, nor can I
> make the scribbles and notes I like to.
The only reason proofreading is easier on paper is that the resolution is
better. There are two ways around this; (1) improve the resolution on the
screen or (2) magnify the text for the display. I take option 2 for the time
being.
> Young "servers" working in fast-food restaurants can't read, but
> they can press the picture of a Big Blip; young secretaries
> can't write, but they use a wordprocessor and spelling and
> grammar checker;
They can "use a wordprocessor" in that they are physically capable of
invoking it and typing text into it, yes. But if you take someone who can't
write and give him a wordprocessor, spelling checker and grammar checker,
you get badly-written ungrammatical mis-spelt text.
> Everyone insists I know my "account number", and my NJ drivers
> license number is 15 digits long. Are there really ten thousand
> million people who drive in NJ, or does it just seem that way?
Tell them where they can stick their account number. I've filled in forms
for my bank which have demanded all kinds of unlikely reference numbers; I
just told the bank that they could fill those in for me, since they have bits
of paper with the numbers on. After all, the number of people called
"mathew" with exactly the same address as me is exactly 1, so it's not a
problem.
> Computers are no longer our tools, we are becoming the tools of
> computers: parsers, at least. How did banks cope before?--they
> used my name, and my address if my name wasn't unique.
Kick back. Read Ted Nelson's book "Computer Lib" (Microsoft Press). Don't
put up with cybercrud.
mathew
--
Hail Eris! / "Our whole economy's based on fear and death; how long can we get
away with this?" --- Jello Biafra / Message for Kodak: Bring back Dan Bredy! /
PGP RSA public key available on request / Desperately seeking Negativland's U2
CD / Just another would-be Mac owner put off by Apple's monopolistic practices
Freeland K Abbott III
What's the point of having pencil and paper if you have a suitable computer?
I can't think of anything you can do with paper which you can't do with a
computer, except maybe light a fire or wipe your nose.
True, it may take several weeks (or even months) to learn to do things on
computer which you can do on paper. But remember that it takes us months to
learn the necessary skills to write crude sentences with paper and pencil.
Given unlimited technology, I agree. Given real constraints, no
computer can match something like a pocket DayTimer or similar
appointment book in terms of portability. Resolution is great, too: I
can scrawl teeny notes and still read them, even in sunlight (though
not, it's true, in the dark). Editting is at least comprably fast
(cross out and rewrite), and access time isn't too bad: I need to
flip, which is slower than a quick click, but the portability is more
than worth it. And no need to keep the batteries live, or worry about
backups (beyond protecting the physical integrity of the system).
The only reason proofreading is easier on paper is that the resolution is
better. There are two ways around this; (1) improve the resolution on the
screen or (2) magnify the text for the display. I take option 2 for the
time being.
Actually, I find magnification requires such constraints on screen
space that it often irritates me more than dealing with the small
type: on small screens, it just doesn't fit, and the scrolling is
irksome; on larger ones, it covers up other stuff I'm doing. But
then, my eyes are still good, and I'm not real consistent in this
preference. But I think screen resolution, screen size, procesor
speed, memory and disk space will always "need" to be increased.
Tell them where they can stick their account number.
Here, I quite agree. "Ugly" stuff like account numbers should (in an
ideal world, which as I noted above doesn't necessarily exist yet) not
need to be seen: they can/should be used by computers, for other
computers, but since they mean nothing to people, there's no need to
expose the numbers to them or vice versa. Since the data entry will
include the information for the computer to find the account number on
its own, they might as well do so and not tell people.
Kick back. Read Ted Nelson's book "Computer Lib" (Microsoft Press). Don't
put up with cybercrud.
mathew
--
Hail Eris! / "Our whole economy's based on fear and death; how long can we get
away with this?" --- Jello Biafra / Message for Kodak: Bring back Dan Bredy! /
PGP RSA public key available on request / Desperately seeking Negativland's U2
CD / Just another would-be Mac owner put off by Apple's monopolistic practices
--
Freeland K. Abbott fab...@athena.mit.edu
441G 410 Memorial Drive MIT Undergrad (Comp. Sci. nerd)
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA "All the history books which contain no
lies are extremely tedious" --A. France
Bruce Bathurst
>What's the point of having pencil and paper if you have a suitable computer?
>I can't think of anything you can do with paper which you can't do with a
>computer, except maybe light a fire or wipe your nose.
The point I wish to make in this response is that the design of
personal computers may be straying from the way computers are
best used by people. Their designs are, in my opinion,
detrimental to "wholistic" thinking and the intelligent solution
of problems. The principal difficulty is the design of the
switch.
My television is designed to flip on and off in a second. This
allows me to flip on the TV only when I want to view a specific
program, and flip it off immediately afterwards. The design of
PC's, in contrast, force people to keep them on all during their
working day. This only encourages people to use them.
Computers, I believe, can assist us when we think in certain
limited, specific ways; but they certainly lack the much greater
breadth of power offered our minds by that superior instrument,
the pencil.
Every problem has two stages in its solution, stages which may
alternate. The first requires rather abstract, fuzzy thinking,
in clarifying the problem (often the hardest part) and
imagining and refining several possible solutions. When this
stage stops being fruitful, it is time to move to the second
stage, which requires rather concrete, exact thinking in testing
the solutions, and implementing one. Here is the time to flip
on the computer and run an application, or program a solution
(having converted doodles to pseudocode), or--if no solution
seem satisfactory--examine more data analyses or spread sheets,
or move more illustrations on the screen, flick off the
computer, return it to behind the jar of rubber bands, and again
pull out the more powerful pencil and paper pad.
Having a desktop PC, as designed today, can be more detriment
than advantage.
Will people solve problems in simple, innovative manners if,
when they sit down, they always have humming before them the
data and arithmetical ability for a quick, brute-force solution?
In gradute school, my advisor assigned me a project the first
week: program his solution to a research problem, a problem he
had approached only after getting enough computer clout.
Instead, I reorganized the problem and solved it that evening
with a pencil. My next advisor was doing long calculations on
an IBM mainframe that one could solve in 5 minutes with pencil
and paper, by using elementary calculus. Both these people were
competant scientists who were hasty in leaving the more
important, first stage in solving a problem because they had
access to a computer and wanted results quickly.
Will my cousin really invest her money wisely if she immediately
pulls up her spreadsheets and Dow Jones figures without first
examining every aspect of her life and thinking about just how
she wants to live 1, 5, and 10 years from now? Should she even
spend her free time in front of a computer screen, when her keen
investments so far have come from long periods of quiet
thinking?
Computers, at the moment, are very useful only during the second
stage of problem solving, and their current use--pushed by
manufacturers and vendors--shows real promise in lowering the
quality of solutions and even damaging the ability of people to
solve problems at all; for online calendars, schedules,
notepads, and--so forth encourage people to pull their PC's from
behind the jar of rubber bands, and turn them on. Because the
only switch shuts down the machine, people are inclined to keep
their machines running the length of the working day.
My opinion is that computers will be exact devices for some
time, and have no role in replacing our far more powerful device
for solving problems, the doodle pad. Computers should be kept
behind the stapler, where they belong.
>Kick back. Read Ted Nelson's book "Computer Lib" (Microsoft Press). Don't
>put up with cybercrud.
Thanks, I shall!
Bruce (Californian, 'Hi, my sign is "Help Wanted". What's your's?')
David Kuder
>information are really necessary to buy a pair of socks,
>why can't the computer look up the rest for itself?
I've got the same question. I once went into a department store
that prides itself on service. I dealt with pleasant young man
and selected my purchases. Then began the cash register caper.
Each item required hand entering, not scanning, a string of 20 digits
into a register with a three letter name. There were also some
additional digits to be entered for employee and type of transaction.
And the poor clutz couldn't get it right! After spending an agonizing
five minutes watching him start, stop, reboot (which involved another
transaction to cancel the aborted one), I spotted a supervisor type and
called him over.
The supervisor was able to enter all 100+ digits to complete
the transaction. He then said he'd say something to the clerk.
I suggested that he instead take it out on the cash register.
For all the disdain Mr. Bathurst has for the Blip Burger style
of register, it's fast. I now do most of my department store
shopping in a place that has scanners and can check things out
quickly.
--
David A. Kuder Just back from the wrong coast
510 438-2003 {uunet,sun,sharkey,pacbell}!indetech!david da...@indetech.com
Mike Moore
>In article <XkLDHB...@mantis.co.uk>
>mat...@mantis.co.uk (From A to B) writes:
>
>>What's the point of having pencil and paper if you have a suitable computer?
>>I can't think of anything you can do with paper which you can't do with a
>>computer, except maybe light a fire or wipe your nose.
>
>The point I wish to make in this response is that the design of
>personal computers may be straying from the way computers are
>best used by people. Their designs are, in my opinion,
>detrimental to "wholistic" thinking and the intelligent solution
>of problems. The principal difficulty is the design of the
>switch.
>
>My television is designed to flip on and off in a second. This
>allows me to flip on the TV only when I want to view a specific
>program, and flip it off immediately afterwards. The design of
>PC's, in contrast, force people to keep them on all during their
>working day. This only encourages people to use them.
>
>Computers, I believe, can assist us when we think in certain
>limited, specific ways; but they certainly lack the much greater
>breadth of power offered our minds by that superior instrument,
>the pencil.
Aha! The *real* problem has come to light! Computers are indeed
limiting, in that they impose constraints on the way in which we
think. This is a fault however, not of the computer, but of the
application which is being used on the computer. The computer after
all, is nothing more than a productivity tool designed entirely to
speed up the process by which we, as human beings, can manipulate
symbols. Yet, this ideal has been long in maturing, the computer
industry is in its adolescent stage of development, we need to think
of the "computer as pencil and paper."
>Every problem has two stages in its solution, stages which may
>alternate. The first requires rather abstract, fuzzy thinking,
>in clarifying the problem (often the hardest part) and
>imagining and refining several possible solutions. When this
>stage stops being fruitful, it is time to move to the second
>stage, which requires rather concrete, exact thinking in testing
>the solutions, and implementing one. Here is the time to flip
>on the computer and run an application, or program a solution
>(having converted doodles to pseudocode), or--if no solution
>seem satisfactory--examine more data analyses or spread sheets,
>or move more illustrations on the screen, flick off the
>computer, return it to behind the jar of rubber bands, and again
>pull out the more powerful pencil and paper pad.
But why flick off the computer? Imagine instead of all the tedious
rekeying of unstructured paper notes into structured application, a
suite of applications that gained information direct from unformatted
input of the pencil-paper kind, *use* the computer as a piece of paper
initially, then cause an application to structure the notes as required.
This creates increased productivity and removes silly duplication of
effort.
>
>Computers, at the moment, are very useful only during the second
>stage of problem solving, and their current use--pushed by
>manufacturers and vendors--shows real promise in lowering the
>quality of solutions and even damaging the ability of people to
>solve problems at all; for online calendars, schedules,
>notepads, and--so forth encourage people to pull their PC's from
>behind the jar of rubber bands, and turn them on. Because the
>only switch shuts down the machine, people are inclined to keep
>their machines running the length of the working day.
>
>My opinion is that computers will be exact devices for some
>time, and have no role in replacing our far more powerful device
>for solving problems, the doodle pad. Computers should be kept
>behind the stapler, where they belong.
Until some science of symbology evolves that allows a 'thinker' to
symbolise unstructured thought in an exact manner (no this is not
necessarily an oxymoron), then you are quite correct. However, we do
have a symbology that allows us to express unstructured ideas,
language. The development of an application that 'understands'
spoken/written language, or some form of universal expression symbology,
is crucial to the development and acceptance of computers in the long
term. Talk of graphical interfaces is valid in the short term, it is of
most interest to us now, but will be of secondary interest within 20
years, limited to the ways in which information may be best presented
once analysed, not related to the question "how do I get this computer
to perform that task." The latter concept will not be a recognisable
problem, you would just need to specify the problem, the computer would
choose which appropriate analyses to run and provide you with results.
ALlowing you to spot the unique solutions, test unlikely strategies,
invent new processes. Productivity at its best!
--
Mike Moore | Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Ich moechte | The world is coming to an
IXI Limited | gerne eine(n) Elektroniker(in) als | end. Please log off.
mi...@x.co.uk | Brieffreund(in) haben. |
David Seah
>In article <1992Mar15....@Princeton.EDU> bath...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Bruce Bathurst) writes:
>>Every problem has two stages in its solution, stages which may
>>alternate. The first requires rather abstract, fuzzy thinking,
>>in clarifying the problem (often the hardest part) and
>>imagining and refining several possible solutions. When this
>>stage stops being fruitful, it is time to move to the second
>>stage, which requires rather concrete, exact thinking in testing
>>the solutions, and implementing one. Here is the time to flip
>>[...](having converted doodles to pseudocode), or--if no solution
>>seem satisfactory--[...] flick off the computer, return it to behind the
>>paper pad.
>
>But why flick off the computer? Imagine instead of all the tedious
>rekeying of unstructured paper notes into structured application, a
>suite of applications that gained information direct from unformatted
>input of the pencil-paper kind, *use* the computer as a piece of paper
>initially, then cause an application to structure the notes as required.
>This creates increased productivity and removes silly duplication of
>effort.
The process of using a doodle pad has a subjective advantage...the doodle
pad has no expectations of performance or neatness. You can scribble on
them with bold strokes of an Eraser-Mate (TM) ball-point pen, and laugh as
it smears all over your sleeve. You can draw little flowers in the corners
as you ponder the problem at hand. It's ugly, but thank God it's just a
doodle.
"But you could do the very same thing with a computer paint program!" Yes,
you could, but I feel that the experience is akin to making loud belching
noises in Carnegie Hall. It doesn't seem appropriate. Applications are
moving more and more toward "the second stage of problem solving" discussed,
towards the polished final draft. Boot up a typical paint program, and you
see tools to draw straight lines connected to lusciously round circles, all
labeled with sexy scalable fonts. The erase and undo tools look askance at
every painted stroke. Fatbits invite you to examine your work more closely
for stray pixels. This is a _production_tool_, man. The entire
application's form is geared to refinement, which isn't neccessary or even
desirable in the doodling stage. The temptation to just "straighten out
that line" or "redraw that circle" can subtly shift your emphasis from "Raw
POWER THOUGHT!" to "Wow, my lines are all lined up". This shift in emphasis
may be related to an article I read in a Macintosh magazine a few months ago
(I forget which one). The article was about students using word processors
to do their essays. They would turn in nattily laser printed, perfectly
spelled and grammatically correct papers, but the essay itself was judged to
be below par. It seems that the students were spending more time touching
up their margins than really thinking about what they were writing.
As an aside, I would look forward to a suite of tools that would allow you
to really doodle ideas and then import them into a word processor or
whatever. A good first step might be to just have a small paint program
desk accessory, available from all applications. I tend to think that the
doodle DA (probably already in existence) would be unusuable because of the
"indirectness" of today's direct-manipulation interfaces. Paint program
tools are neccessary because drawing with the mouse or digitizing pad is
indirect and imprecise. Using the mouse to move a pointer on the screen is
inherently indirect. I would argue that the act of "scientific doodling"
must be as direct as possible, otherwise your Thought Process may be
partially pre-empted by tedious motor-control details.
Bruce Bathurst
(David Seah) writes:
>The article was about students using word processors
>to do their essays. They would turn in nattily laser printed, perfectly
>spelled and grammatically correct papers, but the essay itself was judged to
>be below par. It seems that the students were spending more time touching
>up their margins than really thinking about what they were writing.
There was some discussion about this just a while ago in
comp.editors. There it was mentioned that a trial at Bell Labs,
I think, with a WYSIWYG troff slowed peoples' writing. I noticed
this about a year ago with my own writing: my concentration,
during those difficult periods of quietude, shifted from painful,
fuzzy, creative thinking to fiddling with the format controls.
So I threw away my WYSIWYG word processor, and replaced it with a
text editor and a post-processor that formats. This separates
writing from formatting.
Every week I use a computer for many useful things:
telecommunication, writing (with version control), formatting,
checking hypotheses (with APL), calculating matrix
decompositions, writing a little utility, transferring published
data from a graph in a journal to PC (with a little graphics
tablet), graphing my own solutions, and so forth. Data
acquisition in the laboratory and the potential uses of the
microprocessor in the experimental and the natural sciences are
very exciting.
But what is this drive people have to replace EVERTHING with a
computer? They are nice tools, but they are not the Swiss Army knife
of the mind I see them being sold as. Like the other
"hundred-uses-in-one" tools I see being sold in the popular pulp, an
individual tool designed for a single use does it better.
Building natural interfaces to make the computer a prosthesis
only weakens a powerful tool, and forces people to modify the way
they think and work. Good interfaces are indeed the weakest part
of good applications, but a good interface can never fix a bad
application. The tool should help individuals work in a way that
is natural to them, not vice versa.
Bruce (Gypsy Scholar)
Richard Hancock
>Until some science of symbology evolves that allows a 'thinker' to
>symbolise unstructured thought in an exact manner (no this is not
>necessarily an oxymoron), then you are quite correct. However, we do
>have a symbology that allows us to express unstructured ideas,
>language. The development of an application that 'understands'
>spoken/written language, or some form of universal expression symbology,
>is crucial to the development and acceptance of computers in the long
>term.
Is this is a naive or an expert viewpoint?
Mike Moore
>Mike Moore writes:
>
>>Until some science of symbology evolves that allows a 'thinker' to
>>symbolise unstructured thought in an exact manner (no this is not
>>necessarily an oxymoron), then you are quite correct. However, we do
>>have a symbology that allows us to express unstructured ideas,
>>language. The development of an application that 'understands'
>>spoken/written language, or some form of universal expression symbology,
>>is crucial to the development and acceptance of computers in the long
>>term.
>
>Is this is a naive or an expert viewpoint?
Does it matter? An expert viewpoint would note that natural spoken
language is not an exact symbology, it is not even necessarily exact
when an exact context can be given. My contention that language can be
exact, however, can be proven by reference to certain pidgin language
forms and the 'language' of math and logic. Legal language is very
exact but extracts an unusual toll from the users of that language
(years of study) which is more akin to the study required of computer
science majors in this scenario.
Written language does already have some constraints placed on it that
make it more exact, and I would (naively) put forward the suggestion
that written language is already more exact than the manipulation of
graphical screen objects such as windows. This may be naive, but any
argument suggesting that gesture would be able to replace language is
misplaced except in those unusual scenarios when all that is really
required is a caveman grunt of 'Ugh' and a pointing finger.
I desire my interaction with a computer to be as fruitful and
productive as possible, if you can prove to me that I can do this by
pointing a finger and saying 'Ugh' all well and good, I'm naive. If
you can't, then I'm an expert! ;-)
Mr. L.T. Killip
> In article <1992Mar17.1...@x.co.uk> mi...@x.co.uk (Mike Moore) writes:
>
> As an aside, I would look forward to a suite of tools that would allow you
> to really doodle ideas and then import them into a word processor or
> whatever. A good first step might be to just have a small paint program
> desk accessory, available from all applications. I tend to think that the
> doodle DA (probably already in existence) would be unusuable because of the
> "indirectness" of today's direct-manipulation interfaces. Paint program
> tools are neccessary because drawing with the mouse or digitizing pad is
> indirect and imprecise. Using the mouse to move a pointer on the screen is
Using the back end of a pencil to move the point on the paper is pretty
indirect to a beginner. Tricky too. Don't knock this kind of interface
till you've learnt how to use it.
There is a potential problem though. It may be that by the time we are old
enough to understand the indirectness of the mouse-pointer interface, we
may be too old to learn to use it effectively for doodling.
> ... I would argue that the act of "scientific doodling"
> must be as direct as possible, otherwise your Thought Process may be
> partially pre-empted by tedious motor-control details.
Quite. We must internalise the `tedious motor control details' at as
early an age as possible. And that's going to have to be a pretty simple,
_very_ standard interface if it is going to remain usable for a lifetime.
I guess this isn't something to attempt yet-awhile.
--
______________________________________________________________________________
Les Killip JANET : kil...@uk.ac.liv.csc
Computer Science Dept, Internet : kil...@csc.liv.ac.uk
University of Liverpool,
P.O. Box 147, Phone : 0(or 44)-51-794-3700
LIVERPOOL L69 3BX
United Kingdom
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David Seah
>In article <1992Mar18.1...@ee.rochester.edu>, se...@ee.rochester.edu (David Seah) writes:
>> I tend to think that the
>> doodle DA (probably already in existence) would be unusuable because of the
>> "indirectness" of today's direct-manipulation interfaces. Paint program
>> tools are neccessary because drawing with the mouse or digitizing pad is
>> indirect and imprecise. Using the mouse to move a pointer on the screen is
>> inherently indirect. ...
>
>Using the back end of a pencil to move the point on the paper is pretty
>indirect to a beginner. Tricky too. Don't knock this kind of interface
>till you've learnt how to use it.
Well, I have been using personal computer-based paint programs since
1984...not a really long time, but long enough to have had experienced the
range of paint programs available (on personal computers, that is) up to
now. Definitely long enough to have formed a stubborn opinion :) My
observation is based on pencil sketching, tablet sketching and "mouse
sketching". So far, nothing beats a pencil. The tablet comes close, but
you still must focus on the screen to see the overall effect of your
sketching, instead of looking at what your stylus is pointing at. After
some training, you can generally use the stylus without much thought to the
positioning task. At least you don't have to concentrate on holding the
mouse "straight".
One tip on using a pencil...holding the pencil near the tip offers much more
control than holding it farther back. I imagine that the designers of the
Pen Mouse may have had something like this in mind. It's akin to the
problem of using mice with the ball all the way in the back (under the
palm). With the control sensing in the palm, it is more difficult to use
the fingers for fine control, so you end up using your entire arm. The
design of the mouse body also plays an important role...some mice (like the
horrible round DECstation ones) are designed to be covered with the palm,
leading to (I feel) unacceptable strain and difficulty of control. The
current Apple mouse, on the other hand, seems to favor the fingers grasping
the sides near the ball. If you want to use the button, that is.
>There is a potential problem though. It may be that by the time we are old
>enough to understand the indirectness of the mouse-pointer interface, we
>may be too old to learn to use it effectively for doodling.
I don't see how age or understanding would affect ones ability to use a
mouse for doodling, but I would say that the more direct the interface, the
better for World-Class doodling :-)