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From: klee@daisy.UUCP (Ken Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: A/UX window systems, Mac tool...( Hum Interface)
Message-ID: <884@daisy.UUCP>
Date: 3 Mar 88 18:32:27 GMT
References: <4129@hoptoad.uucp> <283@rhesus.primate.wisc.edu> <1710@ssc-vax.UUCP> <7523@apple.Apple.Com> <1719@ssc-vax.UUCP> <241@eos.UUCP>
Reply-To: klee@daisy.UUCP (Ken Lee)
Organization: Daisy Systems Corp., Mountain View, Ca.
Lines: 23

In article <241@eos.UUCP> lyman@eos.UUCP (Lyman Taylor) writes:
>
>	Multitasking saves the World!      Come on, the only person I know of
>the can actually use two applications at once is Mr. Spock of Star Trek due to
>the unique features of his Vulcan mind ( i.e. he is not a human being ).
>
>       Unfortunately, us humans can only handle ONE high level cognitive task 
>at once.  Therefore, we only need ONE menu at a time.  Anything above that is 
>a nice HACK, but not all that useful for us mortals.  Needless to say, it 
>ignores most of what about Human Computer Interaction.
>
I think you're missing something here.  Some (many?) cognitive tasks
require support from more than 1 application program.  For example, I
regularly debug programs with 3 windows open:  an editor, a debugger,
and the running program.  Even if you had 1 application supporting these
3 things, you'd still need 3 sub-windows to display them all.
Many advanced user interfaces are similar.  There's often one spatial
display window (e.g., a map or image or a spreadsheet), one abstract display
window (e.g., some statistical analysis graphs, etc.), and one control panel
window.  That's 3 windows even for a narrow (but sophisticated) application.
I'd hate to see someone fly a plane (or even drive a car) if he could look out
the window or look at his guages, but not both at the same time.

Ken