Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!srcsip!gorby!mnkonar
From: mnkonar@gorby.SRC.Honeywell.COM (Murat N. Konar)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Xerox sues Apple!!!
Message-ID: <51336@srcsip.UUCP>
Date: 21 Dec 89 22:23:48 GMT
References: <33269@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <10673@encore.Encore.COM> <2676@aecom.yu.edu> <994@biar.UUCP> <1328@key.COM> <2590444E.22947@paris.ics.uci.edu> <1331@key.COM>
Sender: news@src.honeywell.COM
Reply-To: mnkonar@gorby.UUCP (Murat N. Konar)
Organization: Honeywell Systems & Research Center, Camden, MN
Lines: 44

In article <1331@key.COM> jsp@penguin.key.COM (James Preston) writes:
>In article <2590444E.22947@paris.ics.uci.edu> truesdel@ics.uci.edu (Scott Truesdell) writes:
[discussion about textual representations vs. iconic ones deleted; the example
being discussed is the Paint Bucket icon vs. "Fill Area."  The claim
is that an iconic representation requires one level of abstraction and
that text requires two ]
>
>I don't agree with this at all.  In the first place that "levels of 
>abstraction" stuff is just bunk.  Are you actually saying that you personally
>can tell the difference in the time it takes you to recognize the meaning
>of a picture vs. the time it takes you to recognize the meaning of a word?
>In the second place, even if I grant you that, if I am presented with a 
>picture whose meaning I can't decipher, it doesn't matter that it would have
>been quicker than a word; if I can't figure out what functionality it is
>supposed to represent, I'm stuck. 

No, you're dumb.  Try it out and see what it does.  You can always "Undo"
your last action (if the program was written according to Apple's UI
guidlines).

> So the paint bucket wasn't the best
>example; how about the dotted retangle?  Or the lasso?  Or a picture of a
>hand?  Or an asterisk?  Some of these I can look at and come up with a half
>a dozen possible meanings for.  Others I can't even come up with one.  The 
>point is that icon-boosters like to go on and on about how much better 
>pictures are for all the reasons that we've all heard.  But I'm saying that 
>there _are_ cases where a couple of words can be much more meaningful and 
>more easily recognized than a picture.  Yes it's true that once you learn 
>what this things mean, you can remember them.  But that argument applies 
>to cryptic DOS commands too.  

Except that the iconic interface gives you a see and remember interface.  If
you can't remember what that DOS command is for that thing you want to do
your're dead.  (Plastic do-hickey cheat sheets do not constitute a see and
remember interface).





____________________________________________________________________
Have a day. :^|
Murat N. Konar        Honeywell Systems & Research Center, Camden, MN
mnkonar@SRC.honeywell.com (internet) {umn-cs,ems,bthpyd}!srcsip!mnkonar(UUCP)