It's time for a next generation UI
The user interface has been at a super slow crawl lately. It's mostly been about beautification for the last while. It's time for Apple to start evolving the UI a little more radically. So start complaining to Apple everyone. 
1. It's time for a natural language interface, be it a typed interface, a voice interface or preferrably a combination of both. Computers are fast enough and have enough memory now to support software that can understand a fair and concise subset of spoken language. If I type in, "Open the XYZ report," it should proceed to open XYZ report. If I type in, "Change the resolution of the images, [image list], to 1024x768 and reduce their size to less than $100 kbytes each," it should proceed to do it.
2. With screen resolutions growing year by year, the UI effectiveness of the Menubar starts to become less and less, it's time for Apple to wean Macintosh users away from the MenuBar. However, an API should be developed for applications that live on the corners and edges of the screen to support various UI features such as app and window organizers, app and file launchers, and any other sort of informational application that has an affinity for being at the corners and edges of the screen. The aforementioned UI for a natural language interface could be a "screen edge" application.
1. It's time for a natural language interface, be it a typed interface, a voice interface or preferrably a combination of both. Computers are fast enough and have enough memory now to support software that can understand a fair and concise subset of spoken language. If I type in, "Open the XYZ report," it should proceed to open XYZ report. If I type in, "Change the resolution of the images, [image list], to 1024x768 and reduce their size to less than $100 kbytes each," it should proceed to do it.
2. With screen resolutions growing year by year, the UI effectiveness of the Menubar starts to become less and less, it's time for Apple to wean Macintosh users away from the MenuBar. However, an API should be developed for applications that live on the corners and edges of the screen to support various UI features such as app and window organizers, app and file launchers, and any other sort of informational application that has an affinity for being at the corners and edges of the screen. The aforementioned UI for a natural language interface could be a "screen edge" application.
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which, depending on how he pauses, may sound rather insulting
With screen resolutions growing year by year, the UI effectiveness of the Menubar starts to become less and less
Screen resolutions aren't changing as fast as you might think: there's only so much its practical to fit on a screen of a given size. Furthermore, menubars at the top of the screen have infinite depth: flick the mouse up and you're there.
1. You don't have talk to your computer, you can use the keyboard and type.
2. Yes, one can filter out the stupid threads by saying so.
3. If one wants the computer to have a "personality", well, it is your choice.
Originally posted by MacUsers
nah... i like it the way it is
*and innovation dies*
All unix commands are shorthand not to be cool or confusing. They are short because typing long commands is cumbersome and tiring..
Speech is also cumbersome and not suitable for longterm use. A room full of one to 50 people using voice command would be exceedingly annoying and you'd give up all privacy.
Natural language is good for certain things but not full control of computers except perhaps as an aid to the handicapped but that is because there may be no other viable choice for them.
Prolonged speaking and typing is very stressful over a fairly short period of time.
Other methods need to be devised. Brain waves will be able to control computers fairly soon (they are now, I meant "well" and in widespread commercial use ala the mouse), unfortunately we will be only be controlling the current paradigm with a new input method.
Input methods alone are not user interfaces. We need to change not merely how we interact with the computers. We need to change not merely the aesthetics of that which we control. We need to redefine what "it" is, what is data, what is meaning and context and wisdom and...
Right now we are mired in a Brazil-like electronic paperchase. Our computers are vast warehouses of documents scattered everywhere. We are machine centric, document-centric and medium-centric.
A computer needs to be the servant to you. It needs to be self-organizing. Everything needs to be location independant...
Anyway I'm not getting paid to think right now....so that's all.
Originally posted by THT
We are going to have lot more data to manage in the future, and the current WIMP ways will be too tedious without some "enhanced" aids in communication with your computer.
Communication doesn't help you manage data.
Managing data helps you manage data.
Think of it this way: Would you really want to tell the computer "Open home. Open Pictures. Open Travel. Open 2001. Open Sahara. List by size. Select top seven in list." (Voice communication to current way of managing data.)
Or would you rather be able to say "Give me the seven largest pictures of the Sahara from 2001." Or heck, make a smart folder that has that criteria, and have the contents generated automatically. The latter would still be mouse and keyboard, but easier than drilling down through folders.
Metadata is how you marshal and manage profuse data - communicating with the computer is just using the same old management techniques with a different sugar coating. Bleah.
Edit: I GOT BEAT! I don't believe it. I got beat to a post.
(And I don't mean skins or themes! We need to destroy this idea that GUI/UI means THEME!!!!!!
The combined typed and spoken commands could even be more intuitive for some people...
>delete my sisters user account
COMPUTER: are you sure you want to do this ?
"YES!"
COMPUTER: deleting... sorry you don't have permission to perform this action, click HERE to learn about permissions.
"F*CK YOU"
COMPUTER: would you like to play a game ?
Originally posted by AsLan^
In Office, if you have a problem you can pretty much type what you want to do and it will supply a link to take you to the menu you want. Why can't we have an assistant for the UI that will intelligently interpret a users request (typed or spoken), optionally show the steps it will execute and then execute your command and perhaps even provide verbal or visual feedback... it's not hard...
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!
*wipes tears from eyes*
Oh hell yes it *IS* hard.
Office's Help system, by the way, is *NOT* what you want to be holding up as a shining example of reasonable interpretation of natural language. It is a far, far, cry from "Words X, Y, and Z appear in their request, I'll point them to pages on X, Y, and Z" to "Take the X with the Y and put it in the Z."
The former is a simple syntactic lookup, the latter a cognitive contextual interpretation.
There are years of research between the two.
Originally posted by THT
2. With screen resolutions growing year by year, the UI effectiveness of the Menubar starts to become less and less, it's time for Apple to wean Macintosh users away from the MenuBar.
I take it you haven't tried Dejamenu, huh?
Originally posted by Stoo
Screen resolutions aren't changing as fast as you might think: there's only so much its practical to fit on a screen of a given size. Furthermore, menubars at the top of the screen have infinite depth: flick the mouse up and you're there.
Yes!
The top menubar is the single most important aspect of the Mac interface in my eyes. It's always there, it's impossible to miss. Uniformity of interface elements is a very good thing.
(2) Worst. Idea. Ever.
Originally posted by Kickaha
Think of it this way: Would you really want to tell the computer "Open home. Open Pictures. Open Travel. Open 2001. Open Sahara. List by size. Select top seven in list." (Voice communication to current way of managing data.)
This isn't the "natural language" I am thinking of. And it isn't the interface I am thinking of either. A natural language interface shouldn't be one that is a WIMP UI with voice commands. It should have some rudimentary knowledge of context.
I'm wondering if such a system would even need folders... but it is definitely a piece of software that needs to have some limits with a relatively small vocabulary and gets better with usage and further development. In a away, I want to do away with all of the file management currently required.
I'm really beginning to hate drilling down folders when saving files. I'm really beginning to hate trying to remember this or that file. If the computer is to be servant, it should definitely be better one than it is now.
Or would you rather be able to say "Give me the seven largest pictures of the Sahara from 2001."
This is more the natural language I am thinking of. Or, typing, "show my the pdf reports viewed from March 2001 to April 2001." Or, "what songs did I listen to most during the summer of 2002?" Or how about, "pin the dock to the lower left hand corner". How would this sort of interface be any different than typing a dwrite command (which isn't that much shorter if at all) or going through a UI program to do it?
Originally posted by johnq
[B]Why is unix so "arcane"? Because typing, "Make a copy of the spreadsheet called "Tuesday's report.xls" that is on my Desktop and put it in my shared folder" is more cumbersome than "cp ~/D[tab complete]esktop/Tu[tab complete]esday's report.xls(select and copy the file name) ~/Sh[tab complete]ared/[paste]Tuesday's report.xls"
All unix commands are shorthand not to be cool or confusing. They are short because typing long commands is cumbersome and tiring..
Command line interfaces are arcane, and powerful, because they are designed to operate within the framework of current designs with folders, files, and executables.
In a natural language interface, well, the one I am envisioning, why in the world would I want to do this? I wouldn't and shouldn't care about it. Managing data within a directory tree is cumbersome. Just don't worry about because the software can keep track of it for you. The user should just worry about the things they are currently working on or that are currently important to them, and can have icons represent them and such in a direct fashion. But for the volumes of information back through time, the user doesn't or shouldn't have to care about it that much. They can if they want to, but they shouldn't have to expend the energy that is necessary now.
Oh, and autocompletion, tab completion, etc., are wonderful typing aides. I don't think it negates a natural language interface, but aides it.
Speech is also cumbersome and not suitable for longterm use. A room full of one to 50 people using voice command would be exceedingly annoying and you'd give up all privacy.
In a room full of people, people can type. It's better than talking most of the time.
Natural language is good for certain things but not full control of computers except perhaps as an aid to the handicapped but that is because there may be no other viable choice for them.
Prolonged speaking and typing is very stressful over a fairly short period of time.
Other methods need to be devised. Brain waves will be able to control computers fairly soon (they are now, I meant "well" and in widespread commercial use ala the mouse), unfortunately we will be only be controlling the current paradigm with a new input method.
If you think language interfaces are hard and stressful, brain waves are even worse. I would also submit that a brain wave interface is no different from a natural language interface. The means of communicating commands is exactly the same. Not only that, the exact thoughts will be communicated with the very same processes used in speaking or typing. It'll just be a rather tiring and cumbersome input method with brainwaves because of the cacophony of things going on in one's mind.
Perhaps something could be done with interpreting a mind visualizations, but that would be even more user intensive.
Right now we are mired in a Brazil-like electronic paperchase. Our computers are vast warehouses of documents scattered everywhere. We are machine centric, document-centric and medium-centric.
A computer needs to be the servant to you. It needs to be self-organizing. Everything needs to be location independant...
This is why a natural language interface would fit the bill.
Originally posted by Stoo
Screen resolutions aren't changing as fast as you might think: there's only so much its practical to fit on a screen of a given size. Furthermore, menubars at the top of the screen have infinite depth: flick the mouse up and you're there.
But you do admit screen resolutions are changing? Are we ever going to see 800x600 again? 1024x768 is only surviving because of small laptops. Windows, OS 10, X-windows, the major desktop and laptop operating system UIs are barely adequate at 1024x768. One is relegated to a single-tasking of sorts. We are now multitasking more and will be multitasking more than ever in the future. And the most telling signs are that many many of the UI features have come about to stop the use of menubars: button bars, tabbed browsing, contextual menus, etc. Internet age era applications like browsers, newsreaders, IM et al also do not require the heavy usage of the menubar.
So, simplify reduce further. For the apps that are menubar intensive, design something to execute those commands that would require less pointer action and have faster learning curves. For others, simply get rid of it or hide it away because it is rarely used.
The Menubar is a good fit for many applications, no doubt, but it isn't for others. In a multitasking system, why anchor the user to the top of the screen when it really should be on the application window?