The Anti-Mac User Interface (1996)

"If we want to order food in a country where we don't know the language at all, we're forced to go into the kitchen and use a see-and-point interface. With a little understanding of the language, we can point at menus to select our dinner from the dining room. But language allows us to discuss exactly what we would like to eat with the waiter or chef."

Ironically, Japanese menus almost universally have pictures of the food, and often (amazingly detailed) plastic models* of the dish in the window.

I frequently wish this was adopted by western restaurants, as being surprised by what actually arrives on my plate after I order is a regular occurrence.

I'm fully onboard with see-and-point.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_model

I got to use a real Magic Cap, one of the examples of alternative metaphors, in the article, a black and white view of a room with a desk full of old office oddities. It was the worst user interface that may have ever been designed, like an Alice In Wonderland nightmare. Click an envelope on a desk or a clock, and it starts some other metaphor like an image of a spreadsheet in a dialog, or something, which might appeal to some kind of “grand adventure” logic, but in today’s context…I’ll avoid ending with a negative comment.

This was a thought experiment about UIs if the windows and mouse metaphor hadn’t taken off.

As developers we have the best of both worlds: direct visual manipulation, but also a language-centric control of richer objects in the terminal.

Being able to flip between these has always felt like a superpower.

Mac: "The Power to Be Your Best" (ed. Apple's slogan at the time)

Anti-Mac: “You won't always have to work that hard”

AI (Apple Intelligence) is the Anti-Mac:

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/11/12/misguided-apple-intellige...

“It’s really quite a different message than a bicycle for the mind.”

Great post, thanks for sharing.

The description of interacting with a computer through language seems oddly prescient of LLMs.

I feel that it’s time that we stop spending our focus on designing UX inside boxes, but we are in VR and AR winter at the moment.

> Most computer programmers gave up complete control some time ago when they stopped writing in machine language and let assemblers, compilers, and interpreters worry about all the little details.

Ah, there it is. The slippery slope that has stubbornly refused to be slippery for many decades now. Perhaps the author is completely misunderstanding these "metaphors".