Ken KociendaJun 19
Marcin Wichary

Here’s a new, super-interactive essay I wrote about making interactions really great for repeated use, motor memory, and so on.

I wanted to share things I learned as a designer throughout the years, and highlight some of the nuances and great anonymous work but others, but do it in a hopefully interesting way.

Also, I just… love this kind of stuff? I don’t know. My hope is that you’ll fall in love with this, too.

*a big screen very, very recommended*

https://aresluna.org/show-your-hands-honor

Show your hands honor for the strange power they bring you

On designing finger-friendly interactions

Jun 19 at 5:01pmWeb
Show threadDave PagurekJun 19
@mwichary Great work on the UI showing the state of the machine, reminds me of VST UIs in audio software!
Show threadMarcin WicharyJun 19
@davepagurek Thanks! That’s great to know. I wanted to bring a bit of the “UI as machinery” feel to it all, plus I miss very old computers that were so slow and simple that you could see what they’re doing from just looking at their console.
Show threadChancerubbageJun 19

@mwichary

Makes me wonder about buffer size.

Playing ADVENTURE (Collosal Cave) days on a video terminal on a DEC PCP whatever (7? 11?), it was a simple and common habit to navigate through the game preloading the moves (waiting for it to load) up until XYZZY or PLOUGH or PLOVER, to receive a text dump of the narrative so far, and when it had loaded, placing us facing, or past, a dwarf with an ax, or in a maze of twisty passages all alike (different) before the system could even respond.

Show threadLeNomDesFleursJun 19
@mwichary Super impressive work, learned a ton of things
thanks !
Show threadJulian MissigJun 20
@mwichary minor terminology quibble — F3 on recent Apple keyboards is typically Exposé, though your animation is showing Show Desktop. neither being Dashboard.
Show threadMarcin WicharyJun 20
@jmissig Oops, thanks! Fixed.
Show threadThomas SturmJun 21
@mwichary A masterclass on UI design, from the keyboard up. Excellent work. The many hands-on (ha!) examples are great.
Show threadJanne MorenJun 21

@mwichary
FYI, I'm on a large screen (10 inch tablet with keyboard and Firefox in desktop mode), and it still only pops up a message that I should use a computer or large tablet.

Perhaps add a toggle to force enabling the playgrounds, for cases like this?

Show threadMarcin WicharyJun 21
@jannem You can force with https://aresluna.org/show-your-hands-honor/?force-interactive-playgrounds, but the warning is set up to trigger if the resolution is too small, so it might not work very well if you override it.
Show threadJanne MorenJun 21
@mwichary
I've got 11 inch at 2560x1600 - is that too small? If it is, my laptop won't be able to run it either...
Show threadMarcin WicharyJun 21
@jannem No, the minimum is only 1024px. I assume yours would be 1280px in retina px, so I wonder why it’s showing the warning. Can you override and send me a screenshot? Also, would you mind telling me more about your tablet and your Firefox version? 🙏
Show threadJanne MorenJun 21

@mwichary
Samsung S11, up to date Android Firefox.

Now i suspect there is some weirdness with using Firefox specifically . When I override and get to the first playground it shows it briefly, then reloads the entire page without the override.

Don't sweat it - Android tablet with Firefox is a rare corner case. I'll look at it on my laptop some other day.

Show threadMarcin WicharyJun 21
@jannem Yeah, that’s not right. Thanks! Let me know if it feels ok on a laptop.
Show threadslackline :emacs: :orgmode:Jun 21

@mwichary Beautiful, thanks for taking the time to write and craft that.

Muscle memory is so underrated but it's something that takes time to learn and develop. I've used #emacs for decades but still don't have all of the key-chords memorised.

I do sometimes mistakenly use the #magit key-chords in the terminal though and clobber my commit messages (`C-c C-c`commits in Magit but erases the command line message I've typed!).

I also abhor touch-screen UI for typing it sooooo slow.

Show threadsknobJun 21

@mwichary if I try to remember consciously how to play something I wrote on the guitar, I often can’t. I have to grab the instrument and finger memory takes over and remembers everything. It constantly amazes me and feels like an out of body experience.

As for computers, since forever, I couldn’t stand using PCs being so sensitive to all the accumulated smarts of the Mac UI. Don’t know if it’s gotten any better. And touch UIs without proper scrolling physics feel plain broken…

Show threadAlex SchroederJun 21
@mwichary the essay reminded me of the chords used to move and select and cut, copy and paste using the keyboard. Many years ago I switched to Emacs and used the weird key combos and now it pains me to go back to that other mode that has won everywhere else: shift arrows, control arrows, shift control arrows, ctrl x c v w q f – these used to be in my motor memories and now it’s all about ctrl or meta a b f e k d w q s oh dear lord above help when I try to reformat the paragraph and quit the editor instead, or save instead of search, and on and on. Switching between two such schools of motor patterns seems to be impossible to me.