In the past few years a great deal of effort has be spent on creating UIs with minimal learning curve. In general, effort to make computers more usable has been successful. However ease of use has come at the cost of 1000x increase in cpu cycles, and bloating of nearly all programs. With bloat has come added complexity and bugs. The powerful programs of the past (or more intimately computer literate) did demand more of the user, this was seen as a form of elitism by some. I don't think it was intended. The tradeoffs between hide everything and make everything controllable are numerous, but beyond the scope of my specific point. I believe a great deal more could be achieved with wearables if we allow ourselves to take a step back, and try to judge accurately what really is easier to use in the long run. Software that may require a steep learning curve is often highly efficient to the user who is willing to take the time. We tend to want to put more and more work on the computer describing it as tool, and that it should make life easier, but what is easier? To chase a start menu 5 times because its difficult track while in motion? Is voice input really the solution? It becomes very distracting to have people talking in odd command phrases around you. A device like the twiddler with macro abilities may be difficult to learn at first, but then who sat down to a normal (at least to us now) qwerty keyboard and typed 60wpm their first day? Even the notion of typing speed could become less important with a variety of additive note taking capabilities. A simple snapshot with a comment may well help one remember more, then a complex dialog. I've shared this with a friend a few times before I finally decided to post it here. There have been several things on /. recent that uhm also make interesting counter points so.... What does anyone else thing? Or does anyone even care? -- Subcription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with subject of "subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" toWear-Hard Mailing List Archive (searchable): http://wearables.blu.org
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