>>>it's easy for non-programing people to bring "visions" regarding >>>interface design. (and i love do so :) as i know programers, it's quite >>>hard to establish a new standard. but imho the interface standards >>>(buttons, dropdown boxes, scrolling, menu-structure, etc.) are now a >>>couple of years old, and there might be better solutions for specific >>>tasks. audio seems to me like a good point to start. > > > i wasn't talking about such rudimentary stuff. of course there are > alternatives to these basic widgets and several audio applications (even > free ones) have begun to support them. > > the point about a visual interface is that it acts as a "memory buffer" > for the user: you do not have to remember much about the structure of > the session because the structure is made visible on the screen. can't > remember precisely where you put a certain sound? how many copies of the > bridge riff did i put in? is the door slam before or after the creak? > its all there on the screen, just waiting for you to look at it. > > as soon as you move away from a visual UI, you have to find some way to > avoid requiring the user to remember everything about the session. when i try to remember a poem my brain creates images and i walk trough them, when i reproduce it. when i learn a piece of music it does other stuff (i'm a pianist and singer) but in the end i have a very complex thing in my mind, just think of a bach fugue. i have the fugue also in "the fingers". different areas of the brain work together. i have the same oppinion as you, we are very good in using a visual UI. we trained it for a long time. but there could be other combinations that work nearly as good as "mouse-to-eye". > the visual interface offers another hard-to-replicate feature as well: > trivially variable precision. if you try doing cut-n-paste based only on > audio feedback, you will find it quite hard/laborious to be as precise > as you might want to be. with the visual interface, its much easier to > use visual information to get the rough location of an edit and then > get to precisely where you want, without many steps. with audio feedback > based approaches, i think you will find yourself needing many more > iterations through the edit-play-edit-play cycle before you get the > location correct. i think it's all a matter of training. you do the "display-keyboard-mouse-combination" for long years and you became professional in speed and precision. watch a pro-gamer gaming with mouse.. what's about data-gloves? whats with feet-controlers and other "non-standard" devices? greets, gabriel (sorry for my clumsy english)
