Comments on: Cornucopia of Links http://grandtextauto.org/2006/07/28/cornucopia-of-links/ A group blog about computer narrative, games, poetry, and art. Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:43:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 By: josh g. http://grandtextauto.org/2006/07/28/cornucopia-of-links/comment-page-1/#comment-91048 josh g. Thu, 03 Aug 2006 15:40:52 +0000 http://grandtextauto.org/?p=1250#comment-91048 A game dev conference in Vancouver sounds interesting, but the website for the conference isn't very informative. Have any keynote speakers been announced? At this point, the website basically just tells me, "Hi, we're a company that makes money running conferences - and we're holding a game development conference!" (s/and/so/ and suddenly it sounds less compelling.) On the plus side, early registration runs until the month before, so at least I can let it sit until I hear more. A game dev conference in Vancouver sounds interesting, but the website for the conference isn’t very informative. Have any keynote speakers been announced? At this point, the website basically just tells me, “Hi, we’re a company that makes money running conferences – and we’re holding a game development conference!” (s/and/so/ and suddenly it sounds less compelling.)

On the plus side, early registration runs until the month before, so at least I can let it sit until I hear more.

]]> By: mark http://grandtextauto.org/2006/07/28/cornucopia-of-links/comment-page-1/#comment-90619 mark Sat, 29 Jul 2006 19:38:30 +0000 http://grandtextauto.org/?p=1250#comment-90619 Bumptop looks visually interesting, but it seems to fall into the same trap that has plagued desktop interfaces for a generation: Trying to recreate "natural" physical interfaces on a screen, manipulated by a mouse pointer, where they are much less natural. For intuitive learning this has some benefits, but that falls afoul of another trap: Designing for the learning curve. All else being equal, something with an easier learning curve is to be preferred, but an easier learning curve at the <i>expense</i> of a lower top-out usability is not. For those of us who use the computer easily 8+ hours/day, the real issue is how usable it is once we're good at it; learning curves aren't really an issue at all. (Oh, it takes 100 hours to get used to? That's one week of full-time use.) I'm personally much happier and more productive since I <a HREF="http://www.modeemi.fi/~tuomov/ion/" rel="nofollow">ditched the "desktop" metaphor</a> (see link for a manifesto of sorts), and no longer have the constant nagging annoyances of dragging overlapping windows over/above/below/next-to each other, constantly moving stuff around and alt-tabbing to try to find what I'm looking for. As a less radical change, I also like Apple's way of addressing the issue with "Exposé": Instead of abandoning the desktop metaphor entirely, they temporarily abandon it with the press of a keystroke (taking you into a graphical schematic view of sorts), and then rearrange the desktop as requested and put you back into it. Bumptop looks visually interesting, but it seems to fall into the same trap that has plagued desktop interfaces for a generation: Trying to recreate “natural” physical interfaces on a screen, manipulated by a mouse pointer, where they are much less natural. For intuitive learning this has some benefits, but that falls afoul of another trap: Designing for the learning curve. All else being equal, something with an easier learning curve is to be preferred, but an easier learning curve at the expense of a lower top-out usability is not.

For those of us who use the computer easily 8+ hours/day, the real issue is how usable it is once we’re good at it; learning curves aren’t really an issue at all. (Oh, it takes 100 hours to get used to? That’s one week of full-time use.)

I’m personally much happier and more productive since I ditched the “desktop” metaphor (see link for a manifesto of sorts), and no longer have the constant nagging annoyances of dragging overlapping windows over/above/below/next-to each other, constantly moving stuff around and alt-tabbing to try to find what I’m looking for. As a less radical change, I also like Apple’s way of addressing the issue with “Exposé”: Instead of abandoning the desktop metaphor entirely, they temporarily abandon it with the press of a keystroke (taking you into a graphical schematic view of sorts), and then rearrange the desktop as requested and put you back into it.

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