Generic Commands

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for October 29 is now online at:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/generic-commands.html
		
Summary:
Applications can give users access to a richer feature set by using the
same few commands to achieve many related functions. The iPod Touch
provides good and bad examples of this powerful principle of interaction
design.
			
----------------------------------

User Experience 2007 conference

  > Barcelona, November 4-9
  > Las Vegas, December 2-7

31 full-day tutorials
2 keynotes: e-commerce, the state of usability

Full program:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events

DEADLINES this week:
  > Save €150 by advance registration for Barcelona: FRIDAY
  > Save 10% by early-bird registration for Las Vegas: SATURDAY 

----------------------------------

VERBS AND INTERACTION SYNTAX

Steve Jobs was quoted last week in the New York Times for saying that
"there are no 'verbs' in the iPhone interface" and "People don't
understand that we've invented a new class of interface."

Full article:
  > http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/technology/22apple.html

On the contrary, those of us who know user interface history know that
Apple did *not* invent a new class of interface, but rather borrowed ideas
that have been found in previous designs. The interaction style is indeed
rather different than standard GUIs, but not because it doesn't have
verbs.

In a gestural interface, the *gestures* are the verbs: i.e., they tell the
computer what it's supposed to do. The difference lies in the
specification of the nouns, i.e., the specification of what objects the
command should act on.

Most traditional character-based user interfaces use a verb-noun syntax.
For example, a command to delete (remove) the file "foo" may be typed into
the computer as REM FOO.

Most traditional graphical user interfaces reverse this syntax, and use a
noun-verb sequence. FIRST you select the icon representing a file, and
THEN you make the gesture to drag it into the trash/recycle bin. (The
benefit of a noun-verb syntax being that the system can display those
commands that apply to the current selection in a contextual menu;
sometimes accessed by right-clicking the object.)

Many gestural interfaces, such as the iPhone, make the gestures do double
duty, by having the *place* you make a gesture specify the object it is
acting on. For example, the Go tablet computer from 1992 allowed you to
delete an object by writing a proofreading-style delete mark on top of it.

This is the same idea found in the iPhone when you magnify a part of the
screen by "pinching" it (a design previously found in Sun Microsystem's
Starfire project from 1992, which must have been a good year for gesture
innovations). For that matter, it's the same idea as the notion found in
the original Macintosh design from 1984 where you open a document by
double-clicking its icon.

These gestural interfaces use a *spatial* syntax instead of a *temporal*
one. This allows the user to specify the object and the action at the same
time.

Just because the syntax is spatial doesn't change the fact that it's a
syntax and that the interaction language needs ways to express both verbs
and nouns.

Either Steve Jobs doesn't understand interaction design or he deliberately
distorts history to make false claims for his product.

----------------------------------

SEO CAREER PROSPECTS

ZDNet Asia asked me about this topic:

  > http://tinyurl.com/2s4cfk

----------------------------------

EL PAIS INTERVIEW

If you read Spanish, here's an interview with me in the largest Spanish
newspaper in advance of the User Experience conference in Barcelona
next week:

  > http://tinyurl.com/3alw25

Jakob Nielsen es uno de los hombres que más ha influido en la
construcción de Internet tal y como la conocemos, pues ha marcado
las tendencias de diseño seguidas por los principales sitios web.