09-01 · Week 9
CLI, GUI and post-WIMP interfaces
Command-line and graphical interfaces with their advantages and disadvantages, the move to post-WIMP, reality-based interaction themes, and the post-WIMP interface families including BCI.
- Compare CLI and GUI with advantages and disadvantages.
- Define WIMP and post-WIMP.
- Name the four reality-based interaction themes.
- Describe each post-WIMP interface type in the lecture.
16 min readJump to the quiz ↓
Intuition
Typing commands and clicking icons both squeeze a person through the visual and keyboard channels. Post-WIMP design asks what happens if we use the rest of the body and the world around it.
CLI and GUI each win on a different axis
An interface type is what supports the interaction. Given different environments, people, places and activities, you choose an appropriate type.
A command-line interface (CLI) uses a text display: interactive, input through the keyboard, with information displayed or printed. It is great for configuration and batch processing and needs expertise. AutoCAD uses a command line for precise input. A graphical user interface (GUI) is WIMP: Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointing device. It is great for everyday tasks, intuitive, and needs no expertise, but is not the most efficient for some tasks.
Compare
CLI
GUI
Post-WIMP goes beyond classical 2D widgets
Bill Buxton’s line: WIMP GUIs are the perfect interface only for creatures with a single eye, one or more single-jointed fingers and no other sensory organs. WIMP reduces interaction to the visual channel. Andries van Dam (1997) defines post-WIMP interfaces as those containing at least one interaction technique not dependent on classical 2D widgets such as menus and icons.
Jacob et al. (2008) give a framework of reality-based interaction with four themes, with the lecture’s examples:
Exam detail
- Naive physics: the illusion of a rubber surface when zooming into an image.
- Body awareness and skills: putting the iPhone next to the face switches the display off.
- Environmental awareness and skills: a spatial metaphor for browsing photos.
- Social awareness and skills: awareness of others and their actions, multitouch displays in shopping malls.
The post-WIMP families listed are mobile, speech-based, interactive surfaces, tangible, virtual reality and wearable computing.
Speech: conversation style, helps create accessible interfaces (for example for visually impaired users), hands-free; examples Google and Alexa. Interactive surfaces: from smart watches to smart walls, also artistic installations. Tangible: objects control and represent digital information. Virtual reality: a computer-simulated environment where the sensory experience is artificially created and the user can interact; telepresence, telemedicine, gaming, simulation. Wearable: operational on the move, always on (direct access, hands-free, context awareness), many form factors (textile, glass, wrist-worn, interactive skin), many modalities (visual and haptic output, touch and gaze input).
Advantages of post-WIMP: easier to use and superior user experiences; innovative new interaction methods. Disadvantage: might be device-specific.
Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) provide a communication pathway between a person’s brain waves and an external device such as a cursor. The person is trained to concentrate on the task, and the BCI works by detecting changes in neural functioning in the brain. The lecture’s demos are controlling an air shark with your mind.
Pitfall
Interface type is not interaction type. Speech is an interface type here. Whether the user is instructing or conversing through it is an interaction type from Lecture 6.
Optional aside
The lecture also mentions the final report and demo requirements and upcoming assessment dates on its early slides. Those are project admin, not interfaces content.
Recall
Name the four reality-based interaction themes.
Naive physics; body awareness and skills; environmental awareness and skills; social awareness and skills.
Check yourself
Source
Lecture 9 PDF