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Well, it seems to me the aforementioned principles are very general and could apply to non-software UIs such as that of coffee machines or dish washers.


Being commercially successful is not strongly related to usability or technical merits. For two example of commercially successful yet technically terrible products, consider Microsoft Windows and QWERTY computer keyboards.


So, how did keypad-based cellphones running s40 and friends manage to use this very paradigm for years without confusing anyone ?


Depends if the real-world object you mimick does have labels or not.

A big problem which I have with this design trend is that it seems to believe that past designs were perfect and that shoehorning them on a computer is automatically the best solution. But as it turns out, modern desktop computers have ended up gradually dropping the 90s desktop metaphor for very good reasons...


Disagree. Virtual knobs are still quite awkward on a touchscreen, because like everything else on a touchscreen they are desperately flat and slippery. When you turn a virtual knob on a touchscreen, you need to constantly focus a part of your attention on keeping your hand on the virtual knob, which is a non-issue on physical buttons which mechanically keep your hand in place.


Well, that is a given. Only few very simple devices, such as knives, can have a self-explanatory design. As soon as you get into a workflow that is a tiny bit complex, you need to cut it in smaller steps, preferably steps that are easy to learn.


What you are talking about is feature bloat, which is not an intrinsic problem of WIMP. As an example, modern cars are bloated with features no one knows or care about. The reason why they remain usable in spite of this feature overflow is that visual information is organized in such a way that users does not have to care.

Information hierarchization is something which WIMP can do, and which any "post-WIMP" paradigm would have to integrate for powerful applications to be produced. Zooming user interfaces is an interesting example of how this can be done on touchscreens, by the way.


Tell that to video game consoles, which have had pressure-sensitive buttons for ages The reason why desktop computers did not get those is that they were designed for work rather than for fun.

Now, I agree that skeumorphic interfaces can be quite nice for games, especially when coupled with other technologies such as accelerometers. My problem is their apparent lack of generality : it is not obvious what the answer of "post-WIMP" to common computer problems, such as office work or programming. Does it fail at being a general-purpose interface design like WIMP is ?


This kind of paradigm works for simple tasks, but breaks down as soon as you want to do stuff that is a tiny bit complex. How about printing that PDF, as an example ? Or jumping between chapters and reading a summary when you deal with technical documentation that's hundreds of pages long ? Or finding a specific paragraph in such a long PDF ? Or selectively copying and pasting pictures or text ?

It is not impossible to do on a touchscreen interface, and many cellphone PDF readers offer that kind of features. They simply use menus for that, because they offer clearly labeled feature in a high-density display. And what is the issue with that ?


And on one application, a tap will zoom, on another application, it will activate an undiscoverable on-screen control, on a third application will require a double-tap, whereas on a fourth application said double tap will open a context menu...

Beyond a few very simple tasks, such as activating buttons, scrolling, and zooming, gestures are a new form of command line, with more error-prone detection as an extra "feature". They are not a magical way to increase the control density of an application up to infinity without adding a bit of discoverable chrome to this end.


Oh, come on ! This was a valid criticism when microcomputers were all new, but nowadays most of what we do involves a computer screen in some way. Pretty much everyone out there knows how to operate icons, menus, and various computer input peripherals. The problem is with the way application which use these interface components are designed, not with the components themselves !


Basing a human-machine interface on a small number of basic controls is necessary for a wide number of reasons, including but not limited to ease of learning, reduction of the technical complexity, and API code reusability.

Adding millions of nonstandard widgets to increase an application's vocabulary is possible in a WIMP design, good programmers only avoid it because they know how much of a usability disaster that turns out to be.


Such as ?


A common argument that has never been proven to hold in the real world. When I'm in front of an analog audio mixing console, I generally only manipulate one control at a time, except for turning it off, because otherwise I can't separate the effects of the two controls in the sensorial feedback that reaches my ear. More generally, it has been scientifically proven many times that human beings suck at doing multiple tasks at the same time.