The Shuffle
Most of us spend most of our day interacting with computers. It is confusing then why we are still using such inappropriate ways to interact and communicate with them.
Throughout the day I find myself shuffling my right hand between the mouse and the keyboard. I touch-type, so I need to use both my hands. Click here, type something, click there, type again… All very frustrating! We really desperately need a new way for human computer interaction. We should start thinking of computers more as an entity you are communicating with than just another device to get your work done on.
At the moment most people use two mediums in which to communicate with computers - the keyboard and the mouse. This is terribly inefficient and a lot of time is wasted in shuffling between the keyboard and the mouse. But wait, don’t we communicate with each other in more than one medium as well? Yes we do, but the different ways, like body language and spoken language, complement each other and work together to help us to better understand each other. The keyboard-mouse thing does exactly the opposite, they interrupt each other. Think of this as starting a sentence in spoken language and then finishing it in sign language. Not a pretty picture is it? Then why do we communicate with computers in this way?
The problem does is not only with the hardware, but also with the software. Programs and websites are not currently being designed to enable optimal interaction. Surfing the web mostly consists of only using the mouse and then you have to fill in forms, log in by typing your username and password, etc. There are some projects, like the OpenID project and the auto-complete functions of browsers, which makes this more bearable. Is the problem that in trying to escape from paper we are still caught in the paper-based paradigm, designing ‘paper-based’ websites?
Because we interact with computers in mostly a visual manner it is necessary to have more than one medium, but we need to find ways for these mediums to work together without interrupting each other. Some possibilities may include using a left-hand mouse (if you are right-handed like me) and combining it with handwriting. Or using eye-tracking systems to move the pointer on screen while keeping your hands on the keyboard. Maybe the future is in natural language and voice recognition replacing the keyboard. It may even be as simple as designing a one-handed keyboard like the one the vilian had on his arm in one of the Bond films. It took me about two months to learn to touch-type at a reasonable speed - I would definitely take the time to become accustomed to a one-handed keyboard.
All of the above methods are hardware related and there are some really interesting developments in that field at the moment. For now we should consider designing interfaces which are more intuitive and easier to use. Users should be able to, without even thinking about it, find what they need without looking for it.
