Ionrock Dot Org

Ok, I just wasted a good minute or two reading this article on usability today. The guy points out that no one has used the four corners to its full potential and that the desktop is not spatial enough... Well, I have news for him. The HCI research has gone beyond these basic ideas and the desktops are a reflection of this. The essence of the story is tragedy and it my opinion that it just doesn't matter that much anymore. The spatial model has been replaced by a more robust and well researched model based around hypertext. This seems natural since computers quickly moved beyond a few hundred or even a thousand "objects" to developing huge databases that contain more information than most people keep over a lifetime. To force a spatial model on users in this kind of enviornment, we force users to think of their computers as nothing more than space saver.

The blogger also comments on how user interfaces are not able to grow with users. Again, this completely disregards the fact that the interfaces available have been essentially the same for almost 10 years. Considering the fast pace of technology and no real slow downs in adoption, the interfaces seen today have moved from arguable designs, to basic standards.

I'm sure there is more to say but I fear I have wasted enough time already. I think there is a lot of good work going on in the HCI world. I personally feel users do not need extreme new models as much as they need affective tools of digesting the wealth of information. HCI will increasingly become tied to data mining and search technologies more so than just design from a visual perspective. It is positive that usability is somewhat of a hip topic that people are paying attention to. This aspect alone is a huge plus to the field of HCI. It may provide unqualified perspectives, but it is also pushing people to think about possibilities.