Rohan Jayasekera, a fellow TorCamper and original co-founder of the Symaptico ISP,  recently posted about a Microsoft Vista session that we were all invited to at the lovely new Kultura Restaurant (apologies for the horrible Flash website - the food is much better). I have a post in the Drafts folder talking about the session, but a link from Rohan's post to a previous post introduced me to an idea he had regarding experience levels and User Interface tailoring and that jumped the mental queue. You'll find Rohan's post on his blog: Features vs. usability - and how to have both. Go read it and then come on back for some discussion (which you will hopefully continue in the comments!).

In principle, it's a great idea although Rohan isn't the first to think of it. You'll find a somewhat similar concept in most digital cameras, which have "novice" shooting modes (portrait, landscape, sport, etc.) that set most of the settings and offer a very limited amount of play, in addition to expert modes where everything can be changed.

Part of the challenge is in determining exactly which set of functions make sense for which novice user. As an example, does a Novice College Student need the same set of Microsoft Word functions as a Novice Legal Assistant? It is possible to create a system based on two axis (call them Experience Level and Profession, say), but the system now includes all kinds of hidden modalities where Novice Letter Writers can't find the Glossary function (and end up calling their tech-savvy sons :). If the system could be built to have more intelligence - and not in the "It looks like you're writing a letter!" Paper Clip sense - then it might adapt to your needs in real time. Hiding and showing UI controls isn't always the best approach, but keeping them in the same menu structure and revealing them on a toolbar or floating palette might work.

A different approach which tries to do that is the "Ribbon" in Microsoft Office 2007. Microsoft does a good job of describing it on their The New Microsoft Office User Interface page (and a pretty decent video) and I've had a chance to play with it briefly thanks to Sutha's shiny MacBook Pro and a copy of Parallels. The intent here is not to hide functionality based on either Experience Level or Profession, but rather based on contest (or Activity Type). The Ribbon adapts to what you're working on, showing only table controls when you're in a table or chart formatting when you're creating a chart. I haven't used it enough to really form an opinion beyond it having much promise, though I have some concerns around getting stuck in the wrong mode that echo the modality concerns expressed above.

On the whole, new paradigms are hard to spread. We're still typing on a keyboard layout designed to separate frequently used letter pairs to stop typebars from intertwining in mechanical typewriters, despite the existence of much faster layouts like Dvorak. All modern operating systems, including the forthcoming Windows Vista, use the "desktop metaphor" for organizing data, which goes back to filing systems in use for much longer than computers have existed, despite lots of alternatives exist (Lifestreams, Bumptop, etc.). The more successful innovations have tended towards evolutions instead of revolutions, a theme you'll find come up a lot on this blog as we're big advocates for small, measured changes instead of big sweeping upsets. I think there's a lot of benefit to studying alternates to typical user interface widgets, and to blue sky thinking about what we could do if we were free of our current constraints (like supporting public institutions who build controversial and edgy architecture), so that the ideas will trickle down into common practice. Enough from me - I open the floor to you. Is this a good idea? Does it have weight? Will it fly?