I think it's vital to be able to fiddle with a system, but especially in Windows applications, the UI design often seems to represent the features which the developer wants to show off the most, rather than being directed by how a user interacts with a system.
There is a misconception that you develop a UI for either Geeks or Grandmothers, but not both at the same time. But reformulated, does this not simply state that UI design is still an infant science? Think of it like the VHS vs Betamax 'war', and how many people care about this now we have downloads and dvds? Yet we have the opportunity to take the best UI design elements from *anywhere*, we're not stuck upon one format... Usability and Configurability won't be mutually exclusive concepts forever -- the Neo1973 is looking like a great platform to start solving this problem with. Richard On 12/18/06, Terrence Barr - Evangelist, Java Mobile & Embedded Community <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Gabriel, Sorry, but I can't leave this undisputed. I agree there is definitely a line at which a UI is so dumbed-down that it is inflexible and doesn't accommodate anything but the most basic operations. That is the case for many "consumer" applications (including some of the Apple i* apps). The audience for those applications is very specific and if one needs more feature-richs apps you can simply install something better. However, the case of "stubborn, lowest common denominator" can certainly *not* be made for OS X. Have you actually ever used OS X? I am a computer engineer and I do *everything* on my Mac, including hard-core engineering work. Over the last 15 years I've used most versions Windows, various flavors of UNIX, and various embedded OSes. I find that OS X gives me by far the greatest productivity of all systems pretty much regardless of the task. And at the end of the day that is what counts for me, not the degree to which I can *fiddle* with a system. Just wanted to set that straight (and get that flame-war started ;-) -- Terrence Gabriel Ambuehl wrote: > On Friday 15 December 2006 19:53, Richard Franks wrote: >> Apple doesn't have 'killer applications' as such, but each application >> which comes close draws upon a consistent coherent interface - the >> 'just works' philosophy. I'd say this is even more crucial for a >> mobile phone as you have less opportunity to 'fix' things without >> ready access to a keyboard. > > Not meaning to start a flamewar, but if your idea of just works is the same as > the one on OSX, i.e only the lowest common denominator features with a GUI > that allows one way to do it and one only (i.e. very stubborn) then I'll > gladly pass on OpenMoko. The one reason I'm not using OSX is exactly the fact > that it wont allow me to chose how I want to work... > > We have enough dumb phones (even most so called smart phones), why not make a > smart one for a change... > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > OpenMoko community mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
_______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
