The key benefit of today's graphical user interfaces is their consistency and ease of use. Icons, menus, dialog boxes, and controls graphically represent the world with which the user interacts, shaping the user's dialog with the computer and reducing the need to remember commands and file names. Interface metaphors and conventions for visual design and interaction reduce the time it takes users to learn a new application. Once users have mastered the basic concepts of an environment, they can often apply those skills to new situations.
For developers, most systems provide a standard toolbox of interface elements, such as windows, menus, controls, and cursors--the basic building blocks of an application. When assembling these elements, developers follow design guidelines written to make an application consistent and easy to use.
However, today's graphical user interfaces have some built-in limitations that make users less productive and constrain developer opportunities. These limitations are described in the following sections.
Application-centric design limits developer innovation. In essence, there is one kind of product--the monolithic application. Developers therefore have only one way to deliver value to their customers. As segments of a software category mature, application developers get caught in escalating feature wars. The result is ever larger, harder-to-write software.
Because each kind of data is tightly bound to the application that creates it, users find it difficult to integrate several different data types into a single document. Often, a user must export and import a file, or cut and paste data between applications. The translation of data from one application to another usually entails the loss of some important attribute, such as formatting, or the ability to edit the data. Instead of focusing on their work, users must learn many data formats and techniques to make applications work together.
The desktop metaphor is used in most graphical user interfaces to represent and organize files, folders, volumes, and devices; launch applications; and manage windows. While the desktop is a consistent landmark, it also restricts the way users work. For example, today's user cannot pull together a group of documents and tools related to a task, share them with others, or save and restore them as a whole. Because most desktop systems were designed for the single user, extensions to support sharing information are often difficult to use.
Many user tasks involve working with others--in sharing ideas, adapting information, or communicating the results. Today's applications provide specialized lists of users to support a single function, such as electronic mail, calendaring, or file sharing. Because people are not represented consistently across applications, the user must interact with and manage each list separately.
Applications that do support collaboration are generally restricted to a single type of data or collaboration model, such as document management or screen sharing. As a result, the ability to communicate and collaborate is not pervasive. To work with others, the user must learn a different set of interface conventions, concepts, and interactions.
Application-centric design
Laborious integration
of data types
Limitations of the desktop metaphor
Inconsistent representation of others
Weak support for collaboration
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