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Eric Schaffer,
Ph.D., CPE, is CEO and Founder of Human Factors International, Inc.
He has been involved in creating and teaching software design for
more than 14 years. He can be reached by e-mail at
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John Sorflaten,
Ph.D., CPE, started out writing and directing training films and
documentaries then switched to UI design. "A screen is a screen,"
he says. He works at Human Factors International, Inc. and can be
reached by email at
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The following "game plan" missed proper shredding. The crumpled,
top-secret paper fragment appeared in a plastic trash bag with brochures
and paraphernalia linking it to a popular late-20th century CD-ROM game
publisher. A small team of cultural anthropologists uncovered the document
in the year 2056 while researching a old California landfill site (formerly
a "garbage dump"). They were researching computer history, by
the way.
"Story line, $5 million budget MUD (Multiuser Dungeons type game).
For release December 1996.
"With the advent of the mouse input device (Rodentia
Plasticae), life on planet earth forever changed. Homo
sapiens no longer depended solely on frail, fatigue-prone finger
tips to control their savage computers. Limited memories no longer had
to regurgitate long commands to feed their rapacious screen prompts. The
advent of point-and-click heralded the dawn of a new age. Mousing around
brought profit.
"However, against this new, bright sun stood one lone, shadowed,
bearded figured. They called him "OB-1." (Although it sounded
like Obi-Wan, it signified "the Objective One".) Tightly wrapped
in robe and hood, this prophet (some said) dared speak out 'Tyrannasaurus,'
against the revered Rodentia Plasticae. History
later recorded that OB-1 alone was the first human to identify this most
subtle guise of the eternal foe: cryptodesign."
THE MOUSE IN ITS PLACE: FUZZY WUZZY Consider the icon.
Some icons were meant to be moved around on the screen (see our GUI column
for the January/February issue).
We can drag the document icon onto the folder icon. We drop one folder
on top another folder. We shove documents and folders into the trash or
recycle bin. Likewise, take the "window" object. Yes, take it--and
move it. Or point and click on a partially hidden window and bring it
forward into full view. We interact with these objects almost as we do
with paper and folders on our desks. These graphical interactions let
us organize our work into hierarchical schemes unburdened with verbal
commands. We eliminate learning new paradigms by using these metaphors.
We take action nonverbally through direct manipulation. The mouse truly
gives a fuzzy wuzzy feeling to computers.
CRYPTOMOUSE SNEAK ATTACK When preparing a Macintosh
version of our GUI seminar several years ago, we explored some Mac applications.
We found an anomaly: we could not TAB to a radio button ("option
button") or a check box! Afraid this may have been idiosyncratic
to the application, we called an Apple human factors staff member. He
laughed, and said "yes, we know that's a problem. We need to enter
data too. The Mac can't tab to radio buttons or check boxes until we change
some things at the core of the operating system. That'll take a major
revision." Conclusion--the Mac is "mouse-centric." Although
we did get this recommendation: use "type select," i.e., underscore
one of the letters in the radio button label to create an accelerator
key. Then, users could select the option with "Command key + letter
key." However, this solution lacks compelling motivation. Chorded
key strokes (two at once) bring high error rates and slow down input speed
when compared to pressing the tab key.
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