Embedded objects in fields

Charles Hartman charles.hartman at conncoll.edu
Tue Jul 5 15:37:26 EDT 2005


Sure -- though this is exactly not (if not _exactly_ the opposite of)  
the tutorial situation I'm talking about. That is: if the  
*abstruseness* of some information is part of the point of that  
information, doesn't an interface for getting at it that makes the  
path to it *not* automatic reinforce the point of the information?

A huge percentage of what we do on computers isn't like this; early  
interfaces were bad because they made everything obscure including  
the 95% that shouldn't be. All the UI guidelines are ways of making  
designers conscious of that & so correcting it. My point is that,  
while doing clerical work on a computer (which is most of what most  
people use programs for -- from email to w.p. to googling) shouldn't  
make any extra, irrelevant demands on users' attention, I don't  
believe that applies to everything people do on computers.


On Jul 5, 2005, at 12:05 PM, Judy Perry wrote:

> Yes, and one of my favorites to use in teaching is "The Art of the
> Obvious" (Lind, Johnson & Sandblad, CHI 1992).
>
> While it is largely concerned with "automatically processed  
> components of
> the task of reading frequently used documents", the authors contend  
> that
> their findings suggest "implications for task analysis and interface
> design".
>
> Specifically, they (and others) have posited that one of the very few
> visual attributes that humans always automatically (without additional
> conscious processing or thought) register is location.
>
> Thus, scrolling buttons =  requires higher-level brain function and  
> this
> does not making using an interface analogous to the eventual  
> functional
> automaticity of, say, driving a car.
>
> Fascinating read; if anyone's interested, I can email you the PDF.
> Basically, their experimental design was to take hospital and other
> medical charts, remove the higher-level data (numbers and specific
> letters) and replace them all with XXXs in an emergency room  
> context to
> see if/how the doctors could still roughly review the "information"  
> for
> rapid diagnoses ... and... they could because they were familiar  
> with the
> layout of the various forms and knew what the presence (or absence) of
> those XXXs in specific locations could signify.
>
> Judy
>
> On Tue, 5 Jul 2005, Thomas McGrath III wrote:
>
>
>> I agree. It is not good moving buttons in fields or groups. It  
>> makes it
>> too hard for users to develop a motor plan for those buttons. A motor
>> plan is what happens during touch typing or even during walking where
>> our muscles develop a plan to those activities without having to  
>> think
>> about it.
>>
>>
> <snip>
>
>
>> There have been hundreds of papers and years of research done on  
>> this.
>>
>
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Charles Hartman
Professor of English, Poet in Residence
Connecticut College
charles.hartman at conncoll.edu
*the Scandroid* is at cherry.conncoll.edu/cohar/Programs








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