[Sigia-l] Re: Point of View: New metaphors for user interfaces

[hk dunston]

>
>> Incidentally, I don't think the catalog card is unfamiliar to the new
>> generation;
>
> I meant, of course, the physical version, as a search gateway.


I'm working on a library project right now and yesterday in a  
meeting, several librarians laughed hysterically at the suggestion  
that anyone would *enjoy* using a card catalogue. Using a card  
catalogue as a metaphor for an interface seems to me sort of like  
building a car and instead of a steering wheel, using reins --  
because people are more familiar with riding horses.

>
>> All in all, often people will say that the biggest reason they don't
>> like eBooks is that the eBook doesn't feel like paper or have the  
>> feel
>> of a book.
>

We clearly haven't managed to successfully integrate the experience  
of reading a physical book with the amazing power that e-books  
provide. Looking at the available research into electronic paper,  
etc, a really workable, beautiful e-book is probably a long way off  
(10 years?). The holy grail really is an actual physical book that's  
light and flexible, lets you turn pages, but still allows you to  
search, record your marginalia and replace the content when you're  
done reading it. In this case, we're not talking about a metaphor --  
we're talking about an actual physical object.

At the same time, simply replicating the "metaphor" of a book in a  
computer interface strikes me as clunky and overly simplistic. I may  
be going out on a limb here but I always felt that using direct, real- 
world metaphors (an actual library that looks like a bookshelf, a  
"filing cabinet", a "book") in interfaces was kind of like giving  
people training wheels...  they're perhaps useful the first time you  
ever pick up a mouse but soon lose their value.

--hk