Blooper 45: The "TTY GUI"

From GUI Bloopers, by Jeff Johnson (Morgan Kaufman Publishers, 2000). Used without permission.

Here, the graphical version of the interface closely mirrors the textual version

Why is this wrong?

• The control structure does not take advantage of the features of GUI toolkits.
• It makes a false assumption about the nature of GUI programs.
• Classically, in text-mode applications, the program was primarily responsible for the flow of user interactions.
• With graphical interfaces, the user is now primarily in control of his own interactions.

The Solution: A More Fully-Featured GUI

What's right about this?

Fields are given default values where possible, allowing the user to skip data entry where the intended value matches the default. Contrast this with the TTY-GUI requirement of entering every field into a text box, and where the path of least resistance is to use the TAB key to move between fields sequentially.

The user is also able to "see and point" to the correct data values, through the use of radio buttons, increment buttons, and drop-down menus In this way, the user gains an advantage over the text-mode model where a user was required to remember data and its proper format (that's bad!), and type it in the exact same format -- it's also more like Direct Manipulation.