A Philosophical Point

[Thomas McGrath III]

John Richmond,

I read your thesis, and it was very interesting. It seemed that you 
thought through it well.

I do have a question about one of your presuppositions. You state a 
good argument for a very linear approach using an interface that takes 
a user step by step to a final conclusion (a finished application). My 
question is what happens when a user decides 12 steps later that they 
don't like a decision they made 12 steps back? or What happens if they 
are not sure how far back the error in their decision making was?

It seems that to back out of that would be simple enough, but if there 
were dozens or hundreds of steps involved I think that a cognitive 
overload would then occur. I have studied the decision making steps 
that users make while doing day to day work on their computers. Maybe 
if you had another set of question/answer steps to solve changes or 
mistakes on the users part that that could possibly work.

But if that is the case then I would tend to have an argument against 
this concept being able to replace an entire WIMP/GUI for generalized 
use. I do think in a highly specialized/restricted environment that 
this approach would be a viable alternative. But in a 
generalized/expanded environment the sheer number of 
options/choices/questions/answers would still result in a cognitive 
overload as is found in today's modern GUIs.

I therefore think that to a certain point this would be a good approach 
but that, after that a point of complexity is reached and you would 
possibly find yourself back at the initial problem.

My critique is offered humbly and with out malice. I have also been 
facing this issue with alternative interface development for the past 
eight years. I am author of 512 patent claims resulting in new 
approaches for GUI interaction and I am part owner of a company taking 
this new approach to the Cell Phone, Smart Phone and PDA environments. 
We are still in initial startup and I can't share too much more just 
yet because of copyright issues. Sorry. But I can say that with just 18 
buttons I can control every single command/function currently on any 
phone or PDA. But the complexity involved in changing the way people 
think in order to understand our system is much harder then just going 
with the already accepted approaches and I can understand why 
people/companies "stick to what doesn't work!"

Thank you for the opportunity to read your thesis and I hope it is 
received well.

Yours truly,

Tom McGrath


On Apr 26, 2005, at 5:05 PM, Mathewson wrote:

> I recently completed a Master's thesis at the University of
> Abertay, Dundee.
> It was mainly concerned with designing a new Graphic User
> Interface for computers (and may be read, in its entirety,
> on my website at http://members.maclaunch.com/richmond),
> and had at its heart a prototype developed using a version
> of Runtime Revolution. John Richmond Mathewson. 27 April 2005
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> The Think Different Store
> http://www.thinkdifferentstore.com/
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Thomas J. McGrath III
SCS
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Pittsburgh, PA 15234
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