Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

You might want to read up on the history of APIs similar to what you’re sketching, such as File System Visualizer. Like many APIs of its era, this one attempts to improve its usability by presenting information 3-dimensionally, the fashion we humans are presumably best adapted to viewing it.

Alternative GUIs were a very hot topic ca. 1999, but seems to me to have cooled a bit since then, a notable exception involving small handheld devices, such as iPhones and the soon-to-be-widely released and promoted Palm webOS devices. These so-called “gesture based” systems attempt to take advantage of human intuition about pushing, flicking with fingers, and shaking stuff.

Another recommended reading: the 12/1993 Wired Magazine article ”Down with GUIs!”, by (the regrettably late) Jef Raskin, one of the major developers of the basic modern “rectangles in rectangles” GUI paradigm. I consider this essential reading for anyone seriously thinking about GUI design. Raskin was, IMHO, way, way ahead of his time and the present mainstream, thinking of computers with interfaces beyond screens and keyboards at the same time he was working to get screens and keyboards to appeal to the masses of humanity.

Finally, I recommend browsing GUI-related webpages associated with the 1998 13-episode animated series Serial Experiments Lain, ideally in conjunction with watching the series. It is, essentially and in an over-the-top way, about computer interface design, and is full of references overt and subtle to real-world computer projects, especially 1990s OS projects of Apple and NeXT, and the 1940s theoretical memex computer system.