From: utzoo!decvax!cca!Zellich@OFFICE-3@sri-unix
Newsgroups: net.works
Title: Re: Query : End user interface
Article-I.D.: sri-unix.2035
Posted: Thu Jul  8 00:50:18 1982
Received: Fri Jul  9 01:31:44 1982

I definitely would \not/ go with a menu interface of any kind; even if
it could be turned off when the user became familiar with the system.
A "menu" that can be requested by the user at any time with a
question-mark or some such, is a different thing entirely.  Menus tend
to be quite cumbersome when the system has been learned, and only get
in the way of an experienced user; if turned off, then you end up with
a user interface that is too different from what the user just
learned, which isn't such a hot idea.

I don't like the UNIX style of commands because of the mnemonic (or
sometimes not so mnemonic! - but that doesn't have to be a problem
with an interface you're designing yourself) rather than English
commands.  I \do/ like the pipes in UNIX, and would like to find some
way of implementing them in a system that uses English command words
with single-character-recognition/command-word-completion.

A good example of the style of command interaction I think is good is
the one used by Tymshare's Augment (or SRI Int'l or ISI's NLS).  NLS
(or Augment) is a difficult system to learn, but that's because of the
new concepts required by using structured files, not because of the
style of command interaction.  It is a single-character-
recognition/command-completion system, styled in a Verb-Noun pattern
(using a mouse to point to objects on the crt).

-Rich Zellich
-------