Transcript Past, Present and Future of User Interface Software Tools Brad A. Myers, Scott E.
Past, Present and Future of User Interface Software Tools
Brad A. Myers, Scott E. Hudson, and Randy Pausch Developed for HCIC’99 and TOCHI Updated 2009 1
Introduction
User Interface Software Tools Help developers design and implement user interfaces Focus on
Tools
, but influenced by future UIs Today’s tools are highly successful Window Managers, Toolkits, Interface Builders ubiquitous Most software built using them
Are
based on HCI research Brad A. Myers. “A Brief History of Human Computer Interaction Technology.”
ACM interactions
. Vol. 5, no. 2, March, 1998. pp. 44-54. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~amulet/papers/uihistory.tr.html
2
Talk Outline
Historical Perspective What worked What didn’t catch on Why Lessons Learned Future Prospects and Visions UI Trends that will require new tools Important issues 3
Historical Perspective
Themes
Address the useful & important aspects of UIs Tools that succeeded helped (
just
) where needed Threshold / Ceiling Threshold = How hard to get started Ceiling = how much can be achieved Path of Least Resistance Tools influence user interfaces created Predictability If not predictable, then not accepted by programmers Moving Targets Changing user interface styles makes tools obsolete 4
What Worked
Window Managers and Toolkits Event Languages Graphical, Interactive Tools Component Architectures Scripting Languages Hypertext Object Oriented Programming Constraints 5
Window Managers
Multiple (tiled) windows in research systems of 1960’s: NLS, etc.
Overlapping introduced in Alan Kay’s thesis (1969) Smalltalk, 1974 at Xerox PARC Successful because multiple windows help users manage scarce resources: Screen space and input devices Attention of users Affordances for reminding and finding other work 6
Toolkits
A collection of widgets Menus, scroll bars, text entry fields, buttons, etc.
Toolkits help with programming Help maintain consistency among UIs Key insight of Macintosh toolbox Path of least resistance translates into getting programmers to do the right thing Successful partially because address common, low-level features for all UIs Address the useful & important aspects of UIs 7
Event Languages
Create programs by writing event handlers Many UIMSs used this style Univ. of Alberta (1985), Sassafras (1986), etc.
Now used by HyperCard, Visual Basic, Lingo, etc.
Toolkits with call-backs or action methods are related Advantages: Natural for GUIs since generate discrete events Flow of control in user’s hands rather than programmer’s Discourages moded UIs May not work well in future 8
Graphical Interactive Tools
Create parts of user interface by laying out widgets with a mouse Examples: Menulay (1983), Trillium (1986), Jean Marie Hullot from INRIA to NeXT Now: Interface Builders, Visual Basic’s layout editor, resource editors, “constructors” Advantages: Graphical parts done in an appropriate, graphical way Address the useful & important aspects of UIs Accessible to non-programmers Low threshold 9
Component Architectures
Create applications out of
components
separately developed and compiled which are In UI software, each component controls an area of the screen Example: drawing component handles picture inside a document Invented by Andrew research project at CMU (1988) 1999: OLE, OpenDoc, ActiveX, Java Beans Now: SOA Address the useful & important aspects of UIs Just the “glue” to hold together components 10
Scripting Languages
First GUIs used interpreted languages Smalltalk, InterLisp Rapid development, supports prototyping Low threshold Then C and C++ became popular Now, bringing back advantages in scripting languages tcl/tk, Python, perl Visual Basic, Javascript, Ruby, … But language
must
contain general-purpose control structures 11
Hypertext
Ted Nelson named it in 1965 and developed Hypertext system at Brown University Important systems: NLS (1967), Hyperties (1986) World-Wide Web Phenomenal success due to: Ease of use of Mosaic browser Support for embedded graphics Support for easy authoring Low threshold both for authoring and viewing 12
Object Oriented Programming
Success of OO owes much to UI software field Popularized by Smalltalk GUI elements (widgets)
seem
like objects Have state, accept events (messages) Rise parallels GUIs C++ with Windows 3.1
Java for behaviors in WWW 2009: Flash, etc.
13
Constraints
Declare a relationship and system maintains it Sketchpad (1963), ThingLab (1979), Higgens (85), Garnet (1990), Amulet (1997), SubArctic (1996) 1999: hadn’t caught on We thought would be mostly used for graphics Now: Flash data bindings Connect data to graphics Address the useful & important aspects of UIs Predictability Constraint networks can be hard to debug Especially in multi-way constraints High threshold Programmer must specify (or deduce) solving order Constraints require thinking differently 14
What Hasn’t Caught On
User Interface Management Systems Formal Language-Based Tools Model-Based and Automatic Techniques 15
User Interface Management Systems
Original goal: like databases, provide high level language that abstracts details of input and output devices This separation has not worked in practice Good user interfaces must take into account the pragmatics and detailed behavior of all objects Standardization of GUI input and output devices has made goal somewhat moot Doesn’t address the useful & important aspects of UIs 16
Formal Language Based Tools
Early UIMSs used grammars and state transition diagrams Focus on
dialog management
Moving Targets Direct manipulation made dialog management less important Path of Least Resistance State diagrams afford
worse
user interfaces High threshold Formal languages are often hard to learn 17
Model-Based and Automatic
Techniques
Automatic techniques for generating UIs from a
model
or declarative specification of contents Cousin (1985), Mike (1986), UIDE (1993), MasterMind (1993) Try to separate specification of UI from content May provide automatic reformating, retargeting, customization to users, etc.
Result is often unpredictable Often can be
worse
UI than hand-drawn Sometimes model is
larger
than the code it would replace 18
Discussion of Themes
Address the useful & important aspects of UIs Narrower tools have been more successful than ones that try to do “everything” Do one thing well Threshold / Ceiling Research systems often aim for high ceiling Successful systems seem to instead aim for a low threshold Impossible to have both?
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Discussion of Themes, cont.
Path of Least Resistance Tools
should
guide implementers into better user interfaces Goal for the future: do this more?
Predictability Programmers do not seem willing to release control Especially when system may do sub-optimal things Moving Targets Long stability of Macintosh Desktop paradigm has enabled maturing of tools 1999: We predicted a change soon 2009?
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Future Prospects and Visions
Important Trends Ubiquitous Computing Move to recognition-based interfaces 3-D interfaces End-user customization and scripting Violate assumptions of today’s tools Assumptions limit what designers can do Often unrecognized Implications for future tools 21
Ubiquitous Computing
Computation embedded in many kinds of devices Digital pagers and cell phones, Palm Pilots, CrossPads, laptops, wall size displays, “smart” rooms Next wave: easy communication with radio E.g., BlueTooth: www.bluetooth.com
Significant Implications for tools Tools for coordinating multiple, distributed, communicating devices “Multi-computer” user interfaces Moving target problem 22
Varying Input and Output
Today’s Desktop screens vary by a factor of 2.5 in size and a factor of 4 in pixels Tomorrow’s screen will vary by factors of 100 and a factor of 625 in pixels Cell phone to Stanford’s wall (3796 x 1436 pixels) in size 23
Need New Interaction Techniques
Interaction techniques for desktop will not work No room on small devices Can’t reach menubar on wall-size devices 2009: iPhone doesn’t use desktop metaphors Want to run same application on different devices 24
Need for Prototyping Devices
User interface will be in hardware Rapid design and prototyping needed for hardware Pragmatics and usability cannot be evaluated from a simulation on a screen 25
Multiple, Distributed, Communicating
Computers more for
communication
, not for
computation
Already true for WWW, email, digital pagers, cell-phones Computers as intermediaries between people CSCW But can’t assume have similar systems Single person with multiple devices Room-area networks like BlueTooth or HomeRF People communicating with
themselves
Tools will need to help with data sharing and synchronization 26
Limitations of Today’s Tools for UbiComp
Tools assume a Pointing Device Hidden reliance on specific characteristics of common devices Size of display Many tools cannot handle a different number of mouse buttons Change to a stylus on a touchpad requires different techniques Assumptions about the setting Assume user is sitting and looking at UI Assume has user’s full attention 27
Move to Recognition-Based Interfaces
Speech, gestures, camera-based vision Multimodal interaction User will pick which modality to use Use multiple modalities at same time Today, programming these requires knowing about Hidden-Markov Models, grammars, feature vectors, etc.
Need tools to hide these complexities 28
Fundamental Differences of Recognition-based UIs
Input is uncertain Recognition can make errors Requires monitoring, feedback, correction Interpreting input requires deep knowledge of data
Context
of the application “Move the red truck to here” 29
Implications of Recognition-based UIs
GUI event model no longer works Do not produce discrete events Separation of UI from application no longer works Need a architecture based on accessible application data structures “Reflection”, “Open Data Model” 30
3-D Interfaces
Difficult to design the right abstractions for tools Demise of VRML for Web Need to settle on the 3-D widgets and interaction techniques that will be standard Requirement for near-real-time interactivity Need to hide the mathematics 2009: but what useful for?
31
End-user Customization and Scripting
Spreadsheet enables end users to specify their own computation Visual Basic, other “scripting” languages Needed in
all
applications Threshold for programming is too high Need “gentle slope systems” 32
Gentle Slope Systems
Difficulty of Use Programming in C Visual Basic Flash HyperCard
MFC C Programming ActionScript HyperTalk Basic xCmds C Programming
Goal
Sophistication of what can be created 33
More Assumptions of Today’s Tools
Skill and Dexterity of users Older users Makes single, fixed library of widgets untenable Non-overlapping and opaque components Preclude translucency, magic lens interactions Fixed libraries of components (widgets) Creating new widgets is very difficult New devices will require new interaction techniques Interactive tools provide freedom of design Aim for “Mechanism not Policy” 34
Operating Systems Considerations
What is in the OS?
Window Manager? Toolkit? Communication? Scripting facilities?
Need ever increasing services for applications Need more access to low-level information E.g., hardware buttons, whether on network Ideally, API to support competition and research into these components 35
Some Design Guidelines for Future Tools
Many things require further research Organize around providing rich context Of application and device state To inquire about data & methods; “reflection” Enables EUP, Recognition-Based UIs, data sharing for UbiComp Rather than event-based 36
More Design Guidelines
Replaceable User Interfaces Ability to have multiple UIs Enabled by procedural interface to everything in UI Enables UbiComp devices, EUP Aim for low threshold, rather than high ceiling But cover the
right
parts of the interface Predictable for programmers rather than “smart” or automatic Need for support for
evaluation
37
Conclusions
Research in tools necessarily trails innovation in UI design Due to consolidation on desktop metaphor, significant progress in tools UI design poised for radical changes New opportunities and challenges for tools 38