They are like web forms. Fill in everything, then hit send.
Fixed positions, shortcuts, tab-indexed, the order is usually smartly layed out. Zero latency. Very possible to learn how forms are organized and enter data with muscle memory. No stealing focus when you don't expect it.
Optimized for power users, which is something of a lost art nowadays. GUIs were good for discoverability for a while but increasingly I think they are neither great for power users nor for novices, just annoying and yanky.
I remember airport hostesses when they used it to get your boarding pass from the mainframe, it took them 5 seconds and a few key-strokes like 3 letter of my name to get the job done. When they switched to web-uis some year, I vividly remember seeing them, 4 at a time on the same screen, trying to figure out what was going on. Took them 15 minutes and a phone call to get the boarding pass ready. I feel sad when I think about this.
They are like web forms. Fill in everything, then hit send.
Fixed positions, shortcuts, tab-indexed, the order is usually smartly layed out. Zero latency. Very possible to learn how forms are organized and enter data with muscle memory. No stealing focus when you don't expect it.
Optimized for power users, which is something of a lost art nowadays. GUIs were good for discoverability for a while but increasingly I think they are neither great for power users nor for novices, just annoying and yanky.
I remember airport hostesses when they used it to get your boarding pass from the mainframe, it took them 5 seconds and a few key-strokes like 3 letter of my name to get the job done. When they switched to web-uis some year, I vividly remember seeing them, 4 at a time on the same screen, trying to figure out what was going on. Took them 15 minutes and a phone call to get the boarding pass ready. I feel sad when I think about this.
Were these 3270 or ansi terminals?
3270
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GUIs are for distracting otherwise uninterested users into doing what you want them to do.