Advanced Search
Username
Password
Forgot password?
 

Top Forum Posts
Welcome to the Catalyze Forums

The Forums on Catalyze give members an opportunity to network with other members and ask/answer questions on current topics.
Want to post?

You must be a registered member of the Catalyze community to post;

Click here to JOIN TODAY  If you are already a member, SIGN IN HERE
 
Forums > All Catalyze > Usability
Subject: Command Line Interfaces - "It's the New Black"
 Add Tag
You are not authorized to post a reply.  
Author Messages
Rating:
thumbarger6
Posts:9
07/10/2007 1:14 PM Alert 

I ran across the topic of command line interfaces in an article in InformationWeek today and thought it would make an interesting discussion topic.  The article went on to say that it is interesting to see that the command line is again part of the interface discussion after decades of GUI development - and most of this can be attributed to Google and other search engines.

There is a related blog entry at Humanized titled Command Line for the Common Man that should provide additional 'fuel' for the fire.

What do you think?
mpawson
Posts:3
07/16/2007 1:00 PM Alert 
Sounds like Information Week may have read Donald Norman's article "The Next UI Breakthrough: Command Lines" in the May+ June 2007 issue of ACM Interactions - Vol XIV.3

" Want to know what I think the next UI breakthroughs will be? Here are two, both of which can be considered a return to fundamentals:
1. Command line lanquages
2. Physicality: the return to physical devices "
cbk780
Posts:3
08/06/2007 9:57 PM Alert 
When I entered the computer field in 1964, everything was performed by means of command lines. With all of its flaws, there was a lot to recommend for certain types of interfaces. It was fast and fluid, although limited in flexibility and error prone. In fact, I found it quite difficult to adjust to a GUI, largely because of the speed issue. It wasn't until Windows 95 and the Intel Pentium were released, that I became comfortable with the GUI desktop.

While I doubt that we are about to dump GUI's for command lines, I think that the fact that we can discuss their value is a sign of the increasing maturity of the usability field.

Charlie Kreitzberg
JeromeR
Posts:1
08/16/2007 1:00 AM Alert 

Today's command lines are not what they were, since they help us re-enter things typed earlier, and, as we type, they may fix our errors with autocorrect, and guide/predict our choices with autocomplete.

This isn't a return to command lines, it's a step forward to a new animal -- one that makes itself useful to more than just expert users.
brianrstager
Posts:12
09/17/2007 10:29 AM Alert 
Command lines were all the rage in the pre-Windows 95, pre-GUI era. My UNIX book hardly has a spine left from the amount of flipping back and forth looking for the perfect command to execute the intended operation. There was definitely a learning curve and a time investment on my part to understand the 80% of UNIX commands that would get me through my task.

I am curious as to how Alexander Faaborg plans on implementing in an upcoming version/extension of Firefox and how the implementation will be proposed to extended into enterprise level applications. I do think that command lines have value in certain web-browsing situations, such as searching. As the IT profession grows up with Google and Yahoo, we have grown accustom to including boolean keywords in our search to narrow or expand the search.

Command-line web searching works well as there is a very finite set of key words that can be used in the web search. Will this same principle work for other aspects of enterprise applications? I believe that the costs to implement the concept currently outweigh the business benefits reaped. To successfully implement this functionality, the business must either develop the command line rules flexible enough so that it can predict intents of the user or develop the solution extremely rigid and rely on training to educate the user on what is valid and what is not. Both solutions have enough pros and cons for another debate but both involve a cost to benefit ratio that will most likely steer the business away from this idea (just look at how Google and Yahoo implementing their Advanced Search functionality).

Brian