Roy's Techblog

I've always felt that the ubiquitous windowed model of computing with a single pointing device is inefficient. It seems that the folks at 10/GUI agree, and so does Lukas Mathis and others like Scott at ISO50

I'm excited by R. Clayton Miller's 10/GUI, primarily because it is a step in the right direction. Reducing the reliance on haphazardly placed windows and the introduction of a single multi-purpose and very powerful input device are great ideas. For a long time, I've been thinking on and off about how to get out of the windowed paradigm. I've never succeeded.

I dislike the mouse - its clumsy, inaccurate, and hurts. I like keyboard controls, but my fingers get confused beyond two meta keys at a time. I love my multitouch touchpad on my MacBook. I also love the multitouch on the iPhone, but find its screen frustratingly small and the ergonomics for lengthy use to be poor. The obstruction problem mentioned in the 10/GUI video constantly occurs.

All that said, I don't feel that the ideas presented in 10/GUI address power-users, software developers, or multi-document/multi-monitor use very well. I don't even think it deals with normal business multi-tasking very well either.

Frequently, a business user will require two or three applications at a time:

• Communication tools (possibly two) such as MSN/iChat/GTalk/Skype, etc.
• Email
• Reference materials (documents, browsers, help files, emails(s), customer service database screens, administrative tools, etc.)
• Working task (eg. a new document, a new email, administrative tools, etc.)

I believe that a better solution would be to be able to break the workspace into zones and affix "windows" to these zones. Zones could be associated with portions of each display.

I believe that this type of arrangement would help users effectively use increasingly common large and wide-screen monitors, while still performing tasks that require reference materials.

This arrangement should scale well to software developers and power users with dual (or more) monitors, too:

Things that might exist in the Optional Dashboard Widgets would be weather, stocks, news/rss headlines, email alerts, calendar previews, parcel tracking.

Things that might be in the Communications Tool(s) section include VOIP, Instant Messaging, Email status, RSS feeds, Microblogging, etc.

My feeling is that by being semi-windowed in a structured manner, people will be able to continue to use their computers in a more familiar way. This should ease the transition to a new window management philosophy while remaining somewhat familiar. This would allow users to continue to perform their tasks in a familiar way in a novel GUI, thus easing transition and likelihood of success.