Switching between mouse and keyboard is problematic in its mechanical efficacy, not its cognitive ergonomics. Both pointing and typing are usable, useful, and enjoyable, neither is going away. The problem is not how to remove the cognitive load, but how to facilitate the metaphorical switches in thinking that happen anyway, to facilitate, for example, the switch between TEXT is ONE DIMENSIONAL and TEXT is TWO DIMENSIONAL. Each metaphor frames the situation in ways that allow for actions with results both novel and similar if not identical. If I’m typing and want to copy my previous sentence I should be able to do it with the keyboard. If I’m programming and want to select a column of text, it’s cognitively easier to switch to a two dimensional metaphor and use a pointing device than re-think the action in one dimensional terms. The switch to a pointing device is only a problem when it is a problem. On my laptop, for example, my trackpad is right next to my keyboard and I can tell you the design is tremendously efficient in allowing me to move from single dimensional input (typing) to two dimensional (pointing). Despite the efficacy of switching in this case, if I’d like to move my selected column it’s cognitively easiest to use the same metaphoric framing (TEXT is TWO DIMENSIONAL). The system should support this, even if there’s a keyboard based action with identical results.

Does this mean that more ways of doing the same thing is good? Of course not. The idea is that computers should allow for not only for a user’s mental model, but facilitate switches between models of the same entity. If designed improperly the result will of curse be disaster. Being able to do two things well is ideal, but being able to do one thing well is preferable to doing two things poorly.

What he was seeking was automaticity, so that the fingers know what to do and the typist’s attention can remain on the content rather than the mechanism being used to modify the content. The distraction to switch attention to the mechanism and then back to the content is surprisingly time consuming and thoughts can suddenly be driven from the mind and lost, sometimes forever.

Since we live with graphical input devices as well as keyboards, monotony is compromised whenever something can be accomplished with the user’s choice among the two devices. Some people learn the way to do one of those things so well that they use it when their hand is already using the other. That takes more time than is necessary just to move to the other device.and then back.

You might be interested in the author’s summary of the rules and principles from The Humane Interface. You can see that on my website and it might even clarify some of the ideas to see them so succinctly summarized.

Thanks for providing another opportunity for me to think about these ideas.

Let me first say that I do believe that Jef Raskin had some fantastic insights that resulted not only in the successes of the Macintosh and the Cat as you mention but also served as the foundation for applications like Enso and Quicksilver which I couldn’t go without.

Secondly, I’d like to clarify myself. I don’t criticize Raskin for not designing systems that respond to emotion. This is, of course, ridiculously unfeasible to do — at least in any generalized fashion — even now, a decade later. However, I do hold that his views relegated users to the status of thinking, task-centric, executives devoid of other, characteristically human, qualities.

While I think Raskin’s approach resulted in useful insights; I believe our relationships with computing technology are far more complex, nuanced, and messy. This reality is either overlooked or ignored when approaching human centered design as design-for-a-single-locus-of-attention. It’s telling that when arguing for monotony in interfaces Raskin describes how this approach is useful even when machines are acting as users…

I’m not saying that non-modality is a bad idea. I’m saying that if truly “Humane” computer systems are going to be designed, than Raskin’s strict cognitive centric views will need to be sublimated into a framework that takes a more sophisticated view of the qualities that define us humans. I don’t think Raskin should be tossed out, but I refuse to believe that THI is the last word on the design of interactive artifacts.

I was also considering the study of interactivity in the early stages of a designer’s education. That detail though was a little… omitted…

At the masters level I completely agree that the broader contextual issues addressed by IxD can and should be investigated outside of more pragmatic formal considerations (just as any graduate study should expose students to the broader contextual and historical contingencies of their work).

Even in (my) undergrad at DAAP I felt the partnership of studio classes focused on practice paired with seminars focused on theory to be really useful.

What I’m confused by is, unfortunately, a rather personal experience; Graduate designers studying human centered design methods, reading about affordances and mental models, that organize great personas and use cases, then struggle to trasform that information into an insightful interface proposal, let alone innovative ones.

I’ve had only some experience working with UX (or equivalent) guidance, (which was never a bad experience per say). I know to beware the indignent man, so excuse me if I edge towards inflammatory, but I have a genuine question:

Design skills are difficult to train and develop. Correct me if I’m wrong, but learning a UCD methodology is less so. Combined with the fact that even a little user research goes a long way, why should an screen designer take direction from an equally experienced creative and technical writer (for example) with an IxD degree, when they could be trained to due their due diligence for the user, or better yet, simply advance to a _position_ of interaction designer after years of practice?* If the growth of a designer has always been in broadening the context that they work within, from form to content to environment to strategy [citation needed!]. How is IxD not THE advanced design degree but instead a specialized design discipline?

I nitpicked several versions of the manuscript of THI and still took a long time to realize how fundamental the fact of the singular focus of conscious attention is, to how we ought to design programs to work for people.

Jef succeeded amazingly well with the Cat in 1987 and didn’t even crow about the fact that twenty thousand users never found a single bug. Everyone around computers knows that such a thing has never happened but it did and Jef made it so.

When he discussed the zoom world he designed for the hospital information system described in THI, he failed to mention that utter novices were comfortable and competent with less than one minute of training. With such a system we could teach grandparents or professors to use computers, easily. Indeed even computer experts got it in less than two minutes of training. Such is the power of well designed modeless systems.

I think you might be taking my statements too far. Please remember that the article is trying to contextualize about early career development.

At the masters level I do believe that IxD is separable, and it is important to have some academic and even specialized practice that thinks of interaction as a part as opposed to as an amalgem of the design elements.

– dave

Keep on your calendar Interaction 10 | Savannah. SCAD is hosting for the 2nd time (now the 3rd annual) IxDA global conference on interaction design. program coming out eminently @ http://interaction.ixda.org/ (spread the word across the tracks!)
–dave