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At his blog, Stuart Langridge takes issue with a recent Medium post by Tony Aubé titled No UI is the New UI. Aubé's premise is that "invisible" applications—those that use text-messaging or voice-recognition rather than on-screen interfaces—are the future of UI design. Langridge, however, contends that "until very recently, and honestly pretty much still, a computer can’t understand the nuance of language. So 'use language to control computers' meant 'learn the computer’s language', not 'the computer learns yours'." More to the point, "understanding you is laughably incomplete and is obviously the core of the problem, although explaining one’s ideas and being understood by people is also the core problem of civilisation and we haven’t cracked that one yet either." There is less reason to be optimistic about language-based interfaces, he concludes: "I will say that point-and-grunt is not a very sophisticated way of communicating, but it may be all that technology can currently understand."
Langridge: No UI is some UI
Posted Nov 19, 2015 23:42 UTC (Thu) by fest3er (guest, #60379) [Link]
Write a program in assembler. Translate it to C. Translate it to COBOL. Translate it to a natural language. With each translation, note the increase in verbage. If you thought COBOL was verbose, just try writing a program in English. Or French, Or Russian. Or Chinese.
M. Langridge is correct. Until computers acquire, say, another 10 orders of magnitude of processing power and acquire high speed neural networks to recognize and relate patterns of all kinds, the most prevalent response by far from a natural language computer will be, "Unable to comply."
Noise
Posted Nov 20, 2015 5:13 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Short of mind reading, I'd rather type.
Noise
Posted Nov 20, 2015 5:35 UTC (Fri) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]
Exactly. Another reason is privacy. Computers or smartphones are often used for things you would not prefer persons nearby to hear all about. For these reasons I think voice interfaces are a dead end. Possibly useful for some special situations, but not in general.
Noise
Posted Nov 20, 2015 5:59 UTC (Fri) by b7j0c (guest, #27559) [Link]
Noise
Posted Nov 20, 2015 8:37 UTC (Fri) by fb (subscriber, #53265) [Link]
I guess you can appreciate the distinction of:
A. evil corp/government can hypothetically: access my files in the cloud || track my phone || etc
B. my office co-workers || my in-laws || standers by: don't need to know/read/hear the IM messages I exchange with my wife.
It seems clear to me that the context of the GP comment was B. (Regardless of how much weight one decides to give to either of those). Smartphones do buy you the kind of privacy listed at B.
Noise
Posted Nov 20, 2015 10:49 UTC (Fri) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
My wife uses her smartphone mostly for text. She uses voice entry almost exclusively.
I think your "special situations" will be, for many people, "normal situations". Unfortunately, like a lot of people, my wife is disabled. A lot of middle-age people are comfortable with the concept of smartphones, but are "all fingers and thumbs" (a slightly unfortunate turn of phrase :-) when trying to use one.
I think it's a safe bet that the niche for voice control will be a *large* niche.
Cheers,
Wol
Noise
Posted Nov 20, 2015 8:21 UTC (Fri) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link]
That's where neural trans-cranial sensor devices come handy. Imagine being able to communicate seamlessly with a computer with nothing other than a large headset device.
With the "10 orders of magnitude" increase in computing power, I believe we could swing that.
An added side benefit: since the neural interface only captures (and re-transmits) semantic data, there'd be no need for context-specific speech/grammar parsing. Semantics are context-free, unlike most formal grammars and written languages. Imagine error-free I/O without a spell-checker (or even a keyboard, for that matter!).
;-)
Noise
Posted Nov 20, 2015 9:43 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Noise
Posted Nov 20, 2015 10:06 UTC (Fri) by gioele (subscriber, #61675) [Link]
Plus a TED video https://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_a_headset_that_reads_you... and a review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZrat-VG4Ms
Noise
Posted Nov 20, 2015 14:15 UTC (Fri) by jezuch (subscriber, #52988) [Link]
Another reason is this:
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010320
:)
Nothing to worry about...
Posted Nov 20, 2015 22:23 UTC (Fri) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link]
By then, the computer will know better: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
Langridge: No UI is some UI
Posted Nov 20, 2015 5:57 UTC (Fri) by b7j0c (guest, #27559) [Link]
the other day i wanted to take my friend to a sushi restuarant called kamakuri. pulling out my phone and typing
"kamakuri sushi hours"
would have been much more annoying than just saying "ok google, is kamakuri sushi open now?"
which i did, and google nailed it.
in the future, your computing devices may be too small to even have a useful input mechanism for your fingers. voice will happen. it is already incredibly good for a lot of tasks...i'm continuously blown away at the range and accuracy of the verbal commands i can use with android
Langridge: No UI is some UI
Posted Nov 20, 2015 9:46 UTC (Fri) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link]
That would be bad design then if an input mechanism is needed...
Langridge: No UI is some UI
Posted Nov 24, 2015 11:49 UTC (Tue) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
When I first read this comment on Friday I was all set to make a derisive comment about this, based on my last attempt to use speech recognition: as of about two years ago, Google's attempt was the best I'd ever seen, with an impressive accuracy rate of about one word in five, when speaking simple words as clearly as possible.
But since I have a new phone, I thought I ought to actually try what it's like now before commenting: holy mother of god, I've literally never seen any area of technology improve so much in two years. Not even close. It gets like 95% right - it even manages names and places, so long as they're reasonably common - and most of the time it does something vaguely useful. It actually can in some situations be quicker/easier to use voice than to type it in on a tiny touchscreen.
For the first time, I feel like real usable voice control is no longer in the perpetual 30-years-away zone alongside fusion power and automated natural language translation, but actually in the near future, and possibly even realistically usable in limited form now.
Of course it'll have to wait until I'm alone, because I don't want to be the only berk in a hundred-mile radius talking to their phone in public (has anyone ever seen anyone actually do this?).
Langridge: No UI is some UI
Posted Nov 24, 2015 17:57 UTC (Tue) by apoelstra (subscriber, #75205) [Link]
I often compose text messages this way. I've seen several other people do it, technical and non-technical.
Langridge: No UI is some UI
Posted Nov 25, 2015 8:59 UTC (Wed) by peter-b (subscriber, #66996) [Link]
"Okay Google, remind me to buy greetings cards tomorrow evening"
"Okay Google, set an alarm for six thirty tomorrow morning"
It's so much convenient than scrobbling around on a touchscreen for a couple of minutes, and it works so well.
Langridge: No UI is some UI
Posted Nov 25, 2015 20:57 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
I've found the same thing, though... There was a step change somewhere around the Nexus 5 release where google voice went from being laughable to scary good. Downright creepy.
Langridge: No UI is some UI
Posted Nov 30, 2015 11:48 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
Status update: In defiance of the risk of public humiliation, I actually tried this. It was met with a laugh followed by "I can't believe anyone would really do that".
Langridge: No UI is some UI
Posted Nov 30, 2015 16:03 UTC (Mon) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
Langridge: No UI is some UI
Posted Nov 20, 2015 7:35 UTC (Fri) by scientes (guest, #83068) [Link]
Langridge: No UI is some UI
Posted Nov 20, 2015 12:09 UTC (Fri) by ewan (subscriber, #5533) [Link]
Langridge: No UI is some UI
Posted Nov 20, 2015 13:47 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Personally I like using voice on mobile, but I don't do it because that would mean that I would have to tie my phone into Google, which I try to avoid.
Common desktop systems are now powerful enough to do voice. Just need to improve the existing open source stuff to be able to take advantage of it. It won't ever be as convenient to use as big 'cloud' things, though simply because it won't have access to the same data... which is the real crux of the problem.
Another way to look at this issue for the more computer oriented among us is that shell scripting and command line utilities as a way to automate large systems is dying. It's going to be around for the next couple hundred years or so (no question about that...) but in terms of actually being able to manage the sort of systems that are common nowadays things like REST APIs and using real programming is far more advantageous for most things.
Langridge: No UI is some UI
Posted Nov 20, 2015 8:47 UTC (Fri) by osaingre (guest, #61869) [Link]
"Who Needs an Interface Anyway ?"
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-17/who-nee...
Langridge: No UI is some UI
Posted Nov 20, 2015 15:50 UTC (Fri) by macc (subscriber, #510) [Link]
A really useful app should interface to all UI channels available.
A really good UI (slightly off-topic)
Posted Nov 20, 2015 23:48 UTC (Fri) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link]
Best user interface ever. Plus, it sounds lovely.
Re: it sounds lovely.
Posted Nov 21, 2015 1:34 UTC (Sat) by ldo (subscriber, #40946) [Link]
Musicians seem doomed to keep rediscovering this every few years...
Re: it sounds lovely.
Posted Nov 21, 2015 1:57 UTC (Sat) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link]
For about five minutes, until you notice that everything it does sounds the same.
Yes, but that could be said about any musical instrument.
It's just that playing a Theremin involves absolutely no physical contact (other than to turn it on/off), nor does it need lung power (like brass & woodwinds) or hands/fingers (keyboard instruments, lutes, etc.).
Re: Yes, but that could be said about any musical instrument.
Posted Nov 21, 2015 2:01 UTC (Sat) by ldo (subscriber, #40946) [Link]
Having studied music myself for several years, I would say most emphatically not.
Re: Yes, but that could be said about any musical instrument.
Posted Nov 21, 2015 2:31 UTC (Sat) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link]
Well, beauty is in the eye ear of the beholder.
I find the Theremin more fascinating by watching someone play it than listening to it.
Re: it sounds lovely.
Posted Nov 23, 2015 23:02 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
There’s Only One Universal Interface For Computers
Posted Nov 21, 2015 1:43 UTC (Sat) by ldo (subscriber, #40946) [Link]
People keep coming up with all kinds of “natural” or “intuitive” interfaces for humans to control computing devices. They like to point to everyday gadgets we use without thinking, like bathroom taps, or light switches, and ask why computers aren’t as easy to use. Sometimes they even mention cars, forgetting how many months of training (plus ongoing public-service education campaigns) it takes to safely manage one of those.
Along with these interface styles, they always have to produce a list of guidelines for how to use them. And then you notice that the popular applications inevitably disregard a lot of these guidelines.
And people keep discovering that any particular supposedly “easy-to-use” interface paradigm only works well for a limited number of cases—witness Microsoft’s disastrous effort to unify paradigms across desktop and mobile devices.
There is only one universal computer interface, that dates back to the early days, still works today across a whole range of different devices, and will continue into the foreseeable future: the command line.
There’s Only One Universal Interface For Computers
Posted Nov 21, 2015 2:27 UTC (Sat) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link]
the command line
Agreed. Even Microsoft reincarnated the old MS-DOS command prompt as that PowerShell thingy... (probably the only neat feature of recent versions of Windows.)
There’s Only One Universal Interface For Computers
Posted Nov 21, 2015 23:15 UTC (Sat) by b7j0c (guest, #27559) [Link]
There’s Only One Universal Interface For Computers
Posted Nov 21, 2015 23:33 UTC (Sat) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link]
There’s Only One Universal Interface For Computers
Posted Nov 22, 2015 0:17 UTC (Sun) by ldo (subscriber, #40946) [Link]
Did you know every Android installation comes with a command-line shell?
The car version or watch version of Android may have a somewhat different GUI from the handset version, but guess which interface would remain unchanged...
Langridge: No UI is some UI
Posted Dec 5, 2015 13:08 UTC (Sat) by elvis_ (subscriber, #63935) [Link]
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