I liked the introduction to GOMS measurements for comparing interfaces for a given task - it quantified how much slower mousing is than keystrokes; say, 0.2 seconds per keyboard character, vs. 1.1 seconds to point to something onscreen (I don't mention the time for switching from keys to pointer; the book doesn't mention mouse-clicking time as a separate action). This is one of the weak points of the Mac GUI and why I like Launchbar.
The best part of GOMS was not measuring the time, but taking the breakdown of thoughts and actions and distilling the information content of the task; and then comparing that to the information content of the intended task, to get an efficiency measure for the UI. Clearly this chapter only brushed the surface of nailing that down, but I really like the idea.
Other stuff may be profound insights into human-machine interaction, or carefully thought out responses to tiny but unhealed irritations. (Or some Ozymandias complex: the authors' ancient Canon Cat system sounds like a well-reasoned beginner's system of the old day, which neither I nor the household sysadmin have ever heard of, so... sank without trace, eh?) E.g.: cables should not have gendered ends; modes are an insult to human cognitive habits; dialog boxes with a message and a single button are stupid.
ISBN: 0-201-37937-6
So wrote clew in Technology. | TrackBack