{"id":234,"date":"2008-07-21T06:49:24","date_gmt":"2008-07-21T11:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/desktop\/2008\/07\/21\/graphical-user-interfaces-are-just-plain-better\/"},"modified":"2008-08-28T13:00:08","modified_gmt":"2008-08-28T18:00:08","slug":"graphical-user-interfaces-are-just-plain-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/community\/2008\/07\/21\/graphical-user-interfaces-are-just-plain-better\/","title":{"rendered":"Graphical user interfaces are just plain better"},"content":{"rendered":"

Graphical user interfaces are just plain better<\/b>—better than pure command-line interfaces, that is. It should come as no surprise that a user interface designer and developer, such as myself, would make such a bold statement. But time and time again, it’s been shown that good graphical user interfaces outperform command-line interfaces (see Alan Cooper<\/a>‘s work for examples of this). <\/p>\n

Some of you may be saying, “Wait a minute, I know I can move around a command-line much faster than I can move the mouse and click on windows and buttons”. The truth of the matter is, though, the more complex a command-line system gets, the more excise (waste) is generated. That excise includes things like memorizing commands and remembering exactly how to use them and when they can be applied.<\/p>\n

When developing MATLAB’s first graphical user interfaces (many years ago) we came up with a couple guiding principles, the first of which was aimed at reducing the aforementioned excise:<\/p>\n

Increase transparency to the user (i.e. don’t hide state)<\/i><\/b>
\nIncrease user productivity<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Over the years, MATLAB has gone from this:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

to this:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

 
\nQuite a stark contrast between MATLAB version 4.2 and version 7.6!
\n 
\nI think we’ve adhered to those original principles pretty well. Since that command-line interface in version 4.2, we’ve exposed a number of major workflow items:<\/p>\n