The interface paradox: The eternal tension between visual simplicity and command depth

“ Visual, `point-and-shoot'-style interfaces tend to have easy initial learning curves, but also to lack depth; they often frustrate advanced users who would be better served by a command-style interface. When this happens, the frustrated user has a WYSIAYG problem. This term is most often used of editors, word processors, and document formatting programs. WYSIWYG `desktop publishing' programs, for example, are a clear win for creating small documents with lots of fonts and graphics in them, especially things like newsletters and presentation slides. ”

“ Notional disease suffered by software with an obsessively simple-minded menu interface and no escape. Hackers find this intensely irritating and much prefer the flexibility of command-line or language-style interfaces, especially those customizable via macros or a special-purpose language in which one can encode useful hacks. ”

“ Their philosophy is that 'plain text' is required to attract many users across hardware platforms. The viewdata services use graphical display standards with names like Prestel, CEPT, Captain (Character and Pattern Telephone Access Information Network System, in Japan) , Telidon (Canada) , Minitel, Teletel (France) , GIF (the Graphics Interchange Format) , Viewdata, and NAPLPS (The North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax) . You often need special terminal machines to use some viewdata services. On other services, you must use special software plus an emulator card in your computer. ”

“ A natural language capability in computers is required primarily in two kinds of circumstances - (1) where the nature of the information to be transferred warrants the flexibility and generality of a natural language, in distinction to a more specialized language, and (2) where, because of the number, nature, or condition of the humans involved, it is impractical to have the humans communicate in a formal language. There are additional considerations of convenience to the user, and attracting users who otherwise might be reluctant to use the available computer facilities. ”

“ Nowadays, like many operating systems, UNIX hides behind a graphical user interface like the X Windows system. Occasionally—and networking is unfortunately one of those occasions— its quirks like file-naming and directory hierarchy peek through.
This Appendix gives you just enough UNIX to avoid some pitfalls and issue commands needed to transfer files. The basic commands you need to know for any system are how to display directories and list the contents of files, how to name files, and how to get help about the system. ”

“ In the above ten simple rules, we highlight that software should not only be scientifically sound but also be perceived as usable for widespread and effective application. To these ends, developers should also be the first to apply their tool, to reveal usability issues as early as possible. However, effort is required from both users and developers to further improve a tool. ”

“ In the general area of communication between man and machine, a few tasks are already well handled by available languages. For example, in the area of numerical computations the present formal languages, while not perfect, are highly serviceable. When one considers the introduction of sophisticated computer systems into environments where it is necessary for them to communicate frequently, competently, and rapidly with people who are not specialists in computer programming, then the need for improvement in man machine communication capability quickly becomes apparent. ”

“ These users generally require a web interface that facilitates data access and retrieval. On the other hand, computational biologists and software developers generally need multiple channels for accessing data programmatically or in batch for use and integration into their own analysis workflows and software tools. ”

“ Consequently, academic software is typically released as a prototype. We acknowledge that such a tool cannot adhere to and should not be judged by the standards that we take for granted for production grade software. However, widespread use of a tool is typically in the interest of a researcher. To this end, we propose ten simple rules that, in our experience, have a considerable impact on improving usability of scientific software. ”

“ At least by this point, if not sooner, usability should become a priority. Unfortunately, efforts in scientific software development are constrained by limited funding, time, and rapid turnover of group members. As a result, scientific software is often poorly documented, non-intuitive, non-robust with regards to input data and parameters, and hard to install. For many use cases, there is a plethora of tools that appear very similar and make it difficult for the user to select the one that best fits their needs. ”

“ Identify the Missing Pieces Unless you are a pioneer, and few of us are, the problem you are working on is likely addressed by existing tools. As a professional, you are aware of this software but may consider it cumbersome, non-functional, or otherwise unacceptable for your demands. Make sure that your judgment is shared by a substantial fraction of the prospective users before you start developing a new tool. ”

“ An intermediary computer that does set-up and filtering for another (usually more powerful but less friendly) machine (a `back end') . 2. What you're talking to when you have a conversation with someone who is making replies without paying attention. "Look at the dancing elephants!" "Uh-huh." "Do you know what I just said?" "Sorry, you were talking to the front end." See also {fepped out}. 3. Software that provides an interface to another program `behind' it, which may not be as user-friendly. Probably from analogy with hardware front-ends (see sense 1) that interfaced with mainframes. ”

“ There is a related maxim among hackers: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." See {magic}, sense 1, for illumination of this point.
:pod: [allegedly from abbreviation POD for `Prince Of Darkness'] n. A Diablo 630 (or, latterly, any letter-quality impact printer) . From the DEC-10 PODTYPE program used to feed formatted text to it. See also {P.O.D.}
:point-and-drool interface: n. Parody of the techspeak term `point-and-shoot interface', describing a windows, icons, and mice-based interface such as is found on the Macintosh. ”

“ Software that bypasses the defined {OS} interfaces to do things (like screen, keyboard, and disk I/O) itself, often in a way that depends on the hardware of the machine it is running on or which is nonportable or incompatible with other pieces of software. In the IBM PC/MS-DOS world, there is a folk theorem (nearly true) to the effect that (owing to gross inadequacies and performance penalties in the OS interface) all interesting applications are ill-behaved. ”

“ Today, some posting software rejects articles containing too high a proportion of lines beginning with `>' — but this too has led to undesirable workarounds, such as the deliberate inclusion of zero-content filler lines which aren't quoted and thus pull the message below the rejection threshold.
Because the default mailers supplied with Unix and other operating systems haven't evolved as quickly as human usage, the older conventions using a leading TAB or three or four spaces are still alive; however, >-inclusion is now clearly the prevalent form in both netnews and mail. ”

“ To our knowledge, software development as part of scientific research is usually carried out by individuals or small teams with no more than two or three members. Hence, the responsibility of designing, implementing, testing, and documenting the code rests on few shoulders. ”

“ Nevertheless, good usability is imperative for achieving wide acceptance of a software tool in the community. In many cases, academic software starts out as a prototype that solves one specific task and is not geared for a larger user group. As soon as the developer realizes that the complexity of the problems solved by the software could make it widely applicable, the software will grow to meet the new demands. ”

“ The software tools that are employed in a project should be amenable to the anticipated tasks. A spreadsheet program, for example, would be insufficient for a project in which terabytes of data are expected to be generated, and a sophisticated RDMBS may be overkill for a project in which only a few small data tables will be created. ”

“ Using the tidy format makes this distinction clearer. One axiom about the structure of data and code holds that one should “write code for humans, write data for computers” [ [23] ] . When data can be easily imported and manipulated using familiar software (whether via a scripting language, a spreadsheet, or any other computer program that can import these common files) , data becomes easier to re-use. Furthermore, having the source code for the software doing the analysis available provides provenance for how the data is processed and analyzed. ”

“ However, it is also important to acknowledge the specific ways data are selected prior to formal analyses and to consider how such selection might affect conclusions. And it is important to remember that using a single set of data to both generate and test hypotheses is problematic. See Rule 9.
Rule 5: Statistical Analysis Is More Than a Set of Computations Statistical software provides tools to assist analyses, not define them. The scientific context is critical, and the key to principled statistical analysis is to bring analytic methods into close correspondence with scientific questions. ”

“ Clearly, descriptions of human thought processes leading to intelligent behavior cannot serve as a direct template for machine intelligence programming - it is a recognized philosophy of the AI community that software need not exactly mimic human processes to achieve an intelligent outcome. Rather, the objective is to describe some aspects of human cognition in hopes of bridging the gap between present limitations in the AI field and the level of machine intelligence likely to be needed in future space exploration missions. ”

“ A more subtle result of increased automation is greater human dependency on "the machine." Many people may begin to sense a lack of autonomy in relation to their robot creations. This feeling will be exacerbated by the seeming remoteness of the the SMF, far from the immediate control of people on Earth. This may be a real psychological problem for the general public, so great care should be taken to ensure that the move toward complete automation is sufficiently gradual to allow people the opportunity to adjust to a new man-machine relationship. ”

“ Machine capabilities of the future span a wide spectrum of sophistication of operation. As systems become more complex, individual human beings will come to understand decreasing fractions of the entire machine function. In addition, very advanced devices such as SRS may need to be programmed with primitive survival instincts and repair capabilities if they are to function autonomously. At some point the depth of analysis and sophistication of action available to a robot system may exceed the abilities of human minds to defeat it (should this become necessary) . ”

“ People tend to fear machines which they feel they cannot control, even when this apprehension is unjustified (Taviss, 1972) . Great care should be taken to discredit demagogues who may try to create false images and fears in the minds of the public.
Useful production. Planning for an SMF must include detailed consideration of the outputs expected to be produced. The most reasonable approach to production is to view it as an incremental process. Primary initial output of the SMF should be that which allows the facility to expand its own productive capability - an expanded set of machinery. ”

“ Many people, suspicious of modern computers and robotics technology, take solace in the fact that "no matter what goes wrong, we can always pull out the plug." Such individuals might insist that humankind always retain ultimate Life-and-death control over its machines, as part of the social price to be paid to permit their development. Whether this is advisable, or even necessary, is a question which requires further study. Certainly it is true that our civilization all too easily becomes habituated to its machines, institutions, and large organizations. ”

“ Further, we must assume that we cannot necessarily pull the plug on our autonomous artificially intelligent species once they have gotten beyond a certain point of intelligent development. The one thing the artificial system may learn is how to avoid a human being "pulling its plug out," in the same way that human beings come to understand how to defend themselves against other people (George, 1977) . ”