5-1. Uniformity and Elementary Actions
Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.
—William of Occam
The hardware that makes up a computer interface has become formulaic: one or more text input devices (keyboard, handwriting tablet, speech recognizer), a GID, and a two-dimensional color display. The formula, not a bad one, has a few variations; for example, a touch screen can be the text input device, the GID, and the display. Microphones for sound, video inputs, and other electronic interfaces are devices that are not, except experimentally, part of the usual human-machine interface. Indeed, we use the interface to control the functioning of these devices.
If you were to watch a person who is operating today's standard hardware, without ...
Get Humane Interface, The: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
