Re: more on gui piping

[David Jeske <jeske home chat net>]

On Wed, Aug 19, 1998 at 11:38:52AM -0400, charles.j.hagenbuch@williams.edu wrote:
> Sorry to keep spewing large chunks of my mind at gnome-list, but I just had
> another thought, and it belongs in a seperate message than my last.
> 
> Drag and drop is a wonderful thing, but people have pointed out that in some
> cases it is simply not intuitive to people who haven't used a computer
> before. I think I just figured out (part of) why:
> 
> For many tools that we are used to using, the metaphor is backwards.
> 
> Think of a paintbrush. You don't drag your house to the paintbrush to turn
> it blue. You take the brush to the house.
> 
> In the context of graphics files conversion, this would equate to picking up
> convert, "dipping" it into the can that is jpeg conversion, and "painting"
> all of the files that you wanted converted.

Actually, when I do something to files, I think of it more like a
wood-chipper. I get a collection of files made into a pile in front of
the wood chipper, and then feed them through. On the other side, I get
out the new and improved files. 

I never think in terms of bringing my converter to my files, I bring
the files to the converter.

Which just goes to show, a good UI will be understandable. People will
envision the interaction as being whatever they feel comfortable with.

-- 
David Jeske (N9LCA) + http://www.chat.net/~jeske/ + jeske@chat.net