It seems we have not made progress.
All you developers out there now must be thinking “Eh? what? We’ve put a lot of work in to our interfaces”
Well – they’d be right, but there are a couple of old fashioned sayings.
Less is more.
Work Smart(er)
The interfaces I am really talking about here, are specifically call logging software.
Why is it, that with all my screen real estate, I still am forced to have the interface at full screen to see anything vaguely useful ?
No software that I used in this arena (or actually, having a real think about this – any arena – erm, Photoshop, Gimp, Word,Open/Libre Office) *works* for me, it’s like any smartphone – there are issues/pitfalls everywhere.
A call logging/handling piece of software is going to be used in an environment where a member of the support staff needs to do two things – read the information from the logging system, and process that on a system that they are working on.
It is so much easier to see *both* interfaces, at the same time, than have to flip between the two open windows, and hope that they can remember the information from one window when working in the second window.
One could reasonably argue that maybe in such an environment, the support staff would have two monitors attached to the computer, and in many cases, this would be true, I have, and so does all my colleagues.
And more thinking about this – GIMP/Photoshop really also fall into this cesspit of functionality “gap”.
There are too many “toolbars”….
Even with a screen real estate on a high end laptop of 1900×1200 (and most work/enterprise laptops *aren’t* high-end resolution wise) – this still isn’t reasonably enough to actually see what I am doing, and have the space when the software is written such that only a full screen environment makes sense to view/edit etc…
In the case of the mobile worker, and even at times with the non-mobile worker, certainly in my case, I find that rather than try (and as I am human, fail) to remember all the details from one interface, I am actually resorting to writing it down long-hand, with, shock and horror, pen and paper.
This defies the entire point of a computer, or the software applications themselves, as *tools* to make life easier, and enhance productivity.
Obviously I can’t use pen a paper to edit digital photographs, but, thinking back to dark-room days… were things *that* cluttered and complicated ?
I don’t think they were.
What I would like to see, is a nice small, simple interface that tells me only the things I need to know, and the space to be able to enter my own updates.
What I also need, is an interface where I don’t have to scroll either up, down, or worse, left/right to view, edit, or access other fields.
It’s inefficient, and therefore poor design.
I don’t have those problems on an iPhone, in any application.
Apple, to give them all the credit they deserve, have really thought about, and enforce this ethos of interface.
There are lots of people that love the iPhone – why – it works.
You don’t need a manual to use an iPhone, technology should be *that* simple that one doesn’t need a manual.
(If anyone reads this and thinks that I am saying an iPhone doesn’t have faults – think again, it does, this article isn’t the place for those 🙂 )
It’s certainly feasible – OTRS, and specifically it’s iPhone application is an example of where this is possible.
It’s got everything I need there in the interface on the iPhone – please please, can I have the same kind of application on my desktop.
Could I however use a photo editing software on a iPhone? Actually, no… I’d need at least and iPad or similar…
A very definite example of less most certainly being more.
As I conclude here, I think of Roger Hicks, who writes a regular column in Amateur Photographer magazine, and how often he makes similar style of comments, and as I read them, I find myself slowly nodding in agreement…
… Have we lost the point of computers? Or am I getting too “old” 🙂
