Universal GUI (was Re: HIG...)

[Alex Rice]

On Wednesday, July 23, 2003, at 05:26  PM, Richard Gaskin wrote:
>
> I realize it would be an uphill battle and likely without victory.  
> Worth
> pursuing, or better off left as a thought experiment? ;)

I think it's certainly futile for it to be like an RFC or ISO standard, 
but perhaps it could gain a cult following?

I was just reading your interview in revJournal, Richard. There should 
be a universal icon and hotkey for "progressive discloser". Click the 
icon and the app does an onion-skin animation and voila there is your 
advanced user view. Click the icon again and voila there is your 
super-user view!

Just last night I watched my 3 year old learn to use, pretty much 
intuitively, a "conveyor belt" widget in a game, that had right and 
left arrow-triangles for scrolling the conveyor belt. Pretty cool.

There is a cognitive basis for these things! Books that might be 
relevant

Metapatterns / Across Space, Time and Mind
by Tyler Volk

Metaphors We Live By
by Lakoff and Johnson

Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things / What Categories Reveal about the 
Mind
by Lakoff


Alex Rice, Software Developer
Architectural Research Consultants, Inc.
http://ARCplanning.com