The shape of computers to come

Chris Norton, June 22nd 2006, 2:18PM

An article on Slashdot about some graphics-pen based desktop software called 'BumpTop' started me thinking again about interface design (see 'Welcome to Userville'). But then my thinking started to run 'well I wrote that post about software design, better think of something else'. I had to think outside the box - literally.

Because outside the software-displaying boundaries of the computer screen is the computer itself. What does it consist of? Typically a screen, a keyboard, a mouse and a box of tricks with a medusa-head of wires popping out the back. Tech types will tend to view the box of tricks under the desk as the computer itself, and its attendant attachments merely tools plugged into the computer. Non-technical types will often refer to the screen as being the computer - after all, that's where everything happens.

Well I think the whole caboodle needs to be present before you call it a personal computer, and it strikes me that this bitty existence is a bit strange, a bit... underdeveloped. OK, so you have immense power through the ability to get a fancy mouse or a massive screen, but as personal computers continue to move into being consumer items, for heaven's sake the last thing consumers need is complexity. A bit of choice is good, yeah, but if people are going to buy a PC and not change anything, why have a separate monitor and keyboard and mouse and all that?

I think we'll be seeing a lot more of those Apple style combo-computers, where the monitor and main box become as one - and not just because Apple set fashion and are thus copied left right and center. Once those linking wires are got rid of, perhaps we could have some kind of holographic keyboards, and control the pointer by just wiggling our fingers on the desk? Look, we're already partway there.

Tags: control, design, desktop, interface, pcs
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Welcome to Userville

Chris Norton, May 16th 2006, 5:45PM

Working in IT is only marginally less stressful than working at CTU, a recent poll suggests. Well colour me surprised - bet if you did a similar poll of carribean beach-bar barmen they'd be moaning about the hazards of falling coconuts, and you'd probably find toy testers losing sleep over the incorrect rendering of Barbie's eyebrows.

A good deal of this terrible stress is brought upon us IT types by the dreaded Users. As someone said in the poll - 'I spend most of my day fielding calls from people who don't even have a basic knowledge of computers and printers. It is amazing the amount of time I spend teaching people where the on-off button is.' Well whenever I hear this kind of thing, I'm on the user's side, because computers are the most ridiculously designed things in the world (aside from that new rendering of Barbie's eyebrows, of course).

I used to work in a public library and had to help people who'd never used PCs get on the internet. Why do you have to double click those icons to start 'the internet', then only single click everything else? What recycled products does the recycle bin churn out? Why can't I turn it on and off as I please, instead of waiting for all sorts of odd stuff to happen? Who is that paperclip and what does he want from me?

Us lot have been using these interfaces that are completely unrelated to real life for years, but most normal people haven't, and are not interested in tinkering and learning about them like we are. We shouldn't moan about them, we should moan about the design of these systems in the first place. I should be able to talk to this thing as if I was Captain Picard by now, instead of tapping away like someone in a typing pool in the thirties.

Computer, end blog!

Tags: browsing, control, pcs, users
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Selectitis

Chris Norton, April 28th 2006, 9:57AM

When people watch me browsing they think I'm weird - even when I'm not on hatsofmeat.com - because my name is Chris and I am a selecting-things-on-the-screen addict.

When I'm reading something on the web I compulsively select and deselect text with the mouse. I'll click and drag to highlight from the bottom of a paragraph, all the way up to the top. Then I'll click elsewhere to clear the selection, click and drag from the top of the paragraph to the bottom, lather, rinse, and repeat about fifty times.

The select-itis does not stop there. Give me a windows desktop and a slightly distracted mind and I'll easily spend ten minutes clicking and dragging to bring up that little lasso, making the little icons go all blue and then back to normal. My poor iconic fools, behold the selectifying power of my mighty mouse and weep!

I can't stop. I've been doing it whilst writing this. Is it ny hands trying to keep themselves occupied when they're not flying over the keys? Is it some deep psychological need to make everything... turn... blue? Is it something that always annoys Daz when he's looking at my screen? (yes to that last one). I don't know if anyone else has select-itis, or any similar afflictions, but whilst I'm waiting to find out I'm off back to my PHP code for a bit more click, drag, click... click, drag, click...

Tags: browsing, habits, pcs
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I heard the noise today, oh boy

Chris Norton, April 19th 2006, 9:58AM

Aside from the fact that we have Big Brother, deadlines, diets and one hundred different ways to get in touch with people electronically in order to tell them what a crazy fool they were last night, the one thing that distinguishes us modern folks from our ancestors is noise. We're surrounded by it from the minute we get up (I need about five different electronic alarms to wake me up), and the working day is no exception.

At UKFast towers some of that noise is Rich whistling, or Chris pretending to be a pirate. Over there sales and tech are on their phones, over here there's the constant tapping of finger against key. Being in Manchester we've less a sound of the underground, more a gut-wobbling rumble of the overground as trams go past outside. None of this can really be brought to a stop (unless we tape up Rich's mouth), and to tell the truth I think most of us like a little of background sound - myself especially - I hardly ever get the show on the road in the morning without plugging my brain into the iPod.

But there's one source of noise I think that we in the office - and everyone outside of it too - could do without: that din that computers make. As the beasts get faster and faster their fans get louder and louder. We sit pretty near the office's server rack and it's like the constant roar of an angry ocean. My PC at home sounds like an asthmatic hoover - you can actually hear it through the ceiling if you go downstairs. Seems like some manufacturers are catching up - apparently a lot of the new Mac models, for instance, are somebody-somewhere-is-eating-a-Cadbury's-Whisper-quiet - but far too many PCs still produce a wash of background sound that makes it a relief to turn them off. I love machines - in fact, I'm waiting for a terminator-style brutal machine uprising - but sometimes I wish they'd just shut up.

Tags: macs, noise, office, pcs, workplace
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