Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ncar!ico!rcd From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: the interface for the rest of us? Summary: speed of entering information? Message-ID: <1991May6.232937.6334@ico.isc.com> Date: 6 May 91 23:29:37 GMT References: <9105021606.AA26962@lti2.lti.uucp> <1991May3.204023.6661@ico.isc.com> <1991May4.172440.1851@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation, Boulder, CO Lines: 70 mccoy@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Jim Mccoy) writes: [I had said] > |> This past weekend, I had to hand-write a lot of material for the first time > |> in years. (I've normally got my hands on a keyboard for 8-10 hours a day.) > |> Sheesh, my hand is *still* sore, and it's Friday! I've only now realized > |> how much more work (and how much slower) it is to hand-write than to type. > ...As a college student, I would kill for one of > those machines right now. I write many pages of notes by hand, use > several notebooks for different classes. I can write notes by hand > much faster than anyone I have ever known can type,... Without pointing it out, we've directly contradicted one another. I made my statement about speed rather offhand, without checking it. After seeing Jim's note, I decided to test it. On straight prose, I can type about twice as fast as I can write. (This includes time making corrections as I typed, since I'm not terribly accurate.) I think the 2x factor matters; I also think typing is less tiring for the long term. >...and my notes have > spatial and visual cues that your would find difficult to reproduce if > just using a keyboard. A good point for a pen-type interface...although I'm now wondering how one goes between the mode where the pen input is textual (you want to write and have the input scanned into letters and symbols from a known alphabet) versus graphical (you're drawing a diagram or a doodle, and don't want the OCR software to try to make sense of it). I'm not saying it can't be done; I just wonder how it works. > The pen based interface has a much greater chance of being accepted by > the masses than a keyboard. It is something they use every day, Assuming the interface is done reasonably well, you may be right. But there's also Chris Torek's point, which leads to the following reasoning: Should we really be comparing computer-made-to-look-like-typewriter with computer-made-to-look-like-keyboard? Or should we be looking for a new model of interaction not constrained to be so similar to an existing one. Frankly, both keyboard and pen seem fairly primitive. (We need some imagi- nation! Where's Mocsny when you need him?:-) There's voice as another form of input, but it's utterly one-dimensional. (No, I'm not going to sing to my computer.) > |> Perhaps a pen interface will help bootstrap the keyboard-phobic?... ... > No one will go back. Once the pen-based interfaces arrive you will > see massive changes once the machines acheive critical mass... That's an awfully bold prediction. It assumes that the pen-based inter- face can work smoothly and efficiently--I don't doubt that. But it also assumes that it will be more effective than the keyboard for most of the market, which I can't convince myself, and it also assumes that nothing better comes along in the meantime. >...For > example, apply some of the abstract forms of your arguments to the > introduction of the Mac and see its impact now; people said many of > the same things about the Mac, but no one can deny the impact visual > computing and "window interfaces" has had... You're right, but although the Mac has been successful in its corner, "visual computing and window interfaces" are still in their infancy in what some folks like to call the "serious computing" world. I can see the pen augmenting the keyboard; I can't see it supplanting it. The analogy to the Mac world is that the visual/pictorial aspects added to text; they didn't supplant it. -- Dick Dunn rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd Boulder, CO (303)449-2870 ...If you plant ice, you're gonna harvest wind.