ExpandI think the crux of the issue for Ross personally is he has a very strong imagination but little technical skill/understanding. So he can imagine there must be a better GUI just waiting to be created, but has no idea how to make it happen himself. Which must be pure torture and can probably drive a person insane! So I think it's best to try and not get too obsessed with what theoretically could be, and just keep chipping away at making things better where you can.
Hello! Thanks for the response.
I'm admittedly still very inexperienced in regards to this field. Heck, I only just started to get serious about it when my frustrations about HTML boiled over a few months back.
I have some things to say about your posts, but I'd rather not get into long dead arguments, so I'll just say this.
The things that have been left behind, in talks clapped at but ever implemented, are still endlessly valuable stepping stones in research. It's why I encourage you to make the research you've created into something tangible, to test it, to make it weird, to see what works, and then to make it less weird. If it didn't yield results for you, it may yield results for another, and that's what counts.
The goal in making interfaces, at least for me, is to encourage customization and homebrew research, and hopefully a Cambrian explosion of folk design. The visions that exist for desktop customization, even in the most extravagant desktop modding circles, I've seen a depressing lack of invention in making interfaces truly theirs. I want to help make the tools to change that.
I think a desktop connected to the internet at all times being the sole medium for development is... horrifying. The keyboard and mouse, the screen, and hell, the desk and chair, should be parts of a future, not the whole future. I can't really elaborate on my solutions, as I'd much prefer to talk about it publicly once I have an actual demonstration released, and have that demo be replicable with moderate ease.
A part of Ross's vision was a library of test builds that feature novel, experimental UIs. A trove of quirks and invention that may not always work, but can be valuable even through elimination. That's the kind of spirit that should flourish in inventing interfaces.
Novelty, even if it can be silly, grasps for what isn't seen, and sometimes those grasps can grip onto something truly, truly special.
Also, I'm an artist and a toymaker at my core, so even embarrassing failures can make for great jokebooks.
Edit:
My issues with the UI have grown to be quite different compared to Ross, so I'll just lay down my main goals in research.
- Building web-based media (or at least concepts for media) that encourages anyone to make a web-based art piece in an afternoon.
- Using that media to build environments where computing, programming, and peripheral design is accessible to anyone.
- Promoting and developing alternatives to the current internet, and not in the Tiktok/Facebook sense, but rather URLs and HTML.
All of these are things that have irked me to no end ever since I embraced making art, and they'll irk me for quite some time.