[Thomas An.]

Then I watched an online (getting started) tutorial from their site .... and this phrase always gets me:
"Blender interface is very intuitive .... once you get used to it"
(This is an oxymoron fellows ... "intuitive" and "getting used to" do not mix well.

[/End Rant]

[Eric Lagman]

Why were you looking at blender out of curiosity? My brain struggles with Sub-D modelling for some reason. I would like to learn though.

[Thomas An.]

Why were you looking at blender out of curiosity? My brain struggles with Sub-D modelling for some reason. I would like to learn though.

Well, it is free, it has been sitting on my drive for a while (pondering to delete it or not), and wanted to see what it feels like doing poly modeling (instead of Nurbs all the time).

[Rochr]

Then I watched an online (getting started) tutorial from their site .... and this phrase always gets me:
"Blender interface is very intuitive .... once you get used to it"
(This is an oxymoron fellows ... "intuitive" and "getting used to" do not mix well.

[/End Rant]

Yeah, kinda like Maxwells materials editor. Don´t know how many times a similar phrase have been used for describing it.

[Thomas An.]

Yeah, kinda like Maxwells materials editor. Don´t know how many times a similar phrase have been used for describing it.

Similar feelings have been expressed for the Vray and Mental Ray editors. Here you are getting caught in the "old dog" retraining issue. Once we *do* manage to get used to an awkward method (such as existing CG editors) then when exposed to something different (trying to teach an old dog new tricks), we feel uncomfortable.

(IMHO) there should be a global UI police that defines "intuitive" once and for all; so that not everyone uses the word lightly.

For example:
-Take a specimen with no (absolutely none) exposure to 3d modeling (say ThomasAn on 1997)
-Give the specimen a number of 3d packages to evaluate (without giving him/her any instruction manual at all)
-Determine how far s/he advances within a 1-3 hour time (can s/he even draw something ?)

Incidentally, this indeed happened. When I tried a number of 3d packages back in 1997 (I had no experience at all, never touched a 3d viewport). From all the demos, the only package that proved the most intuitive (to a 3d virgin) was Rhino. Its interface was most readily discoverable.

[Mihai]

Intuitive vs intelligent

Was an interesting presentation on that ted.com site.

Sometimes a UI feature might seem intuitive, but using it often you realize it's awkward. In this case the intelligent design should take precedence IMO. You might have to actually read a manual before using it, but the workflow is faster and more efficient with an intelligent design = XSI

[Rochr]

Similar feelings have been expressed for the Vray and Mental Ray editors. Here you are getting caught in the "old dog" retraining issue. Once we *do* manage to get used to an awkward method (such as existing CG editors) then when exposed to something different (trying to teach an old dog new tricks), we feel uncomfortable.

(IMHO) there should be a global UI police that defines "intuitive" once and for all; so that not everyone uses the word lightly.

Indeed!

In my book, intuitive means that you don´t need to open up a manual to start working, but use logic instead. In my case, that would be the "awkward method" above. Guess i´m just spoiled with Cinema4D.

[Thomas An.]

... You might have to actually read a manual before using it ...

What a barbarian ... you should be thrown to the crocodiles

[michaelplogue]

I came across this when I started many years ago dealing with 2D programs. I always preferred Corel Paint over Adobe Photoshop, simply because it was much more intuitive and actually had buttons for all of its operations, unlike PS which required you to memorize a ton of keyboard commands. Now, I'm much happier with Photoshop (once I got used to it )

Nowadays, I find myself preferring keyboard commands over mouse movements and clicking - it's faster and more efficient. I just hate the time it takes to memorize the keystrokes. Fortunately, most decent programs now allow you to customize your keyboard commands, so inevitably I set them to use the same commands for similar actions. The downside of this is that when I have to work on someone else's computer that's using the default commands, I'm completely lost...

[glypticmax]

Why were you looking at blender out of curiosity? My brain struggles with Sub-D modelling for some reason. I would like to learn though.

Well, it is free, it has been sitting on my drive for a while (pondering to delete it or not), and wanted to see what it feels like doing poly modeling (instead of Nurbs all the time).

Check out Rhino V4 Beta + Tsplines free beta. The Tspline vids are very helpful. Convert NURBS surface to Tspline surface. Add/subtract control points, add/subtract splines. Push/pull to your heart's content. While maintaining surface continuity within a polysurface.

[Mihai]

Well,just making a point that intuitive shouldn't necessarily be the ultimate goal. Why are there so many people who still prefer the command line for performing certain operations?

Intuitive does not mean more efficient, more powerful. This is the difference between intelligent and intuitive design. It doesn't always have to be one or the other, hopefully you strive so they mean the same thing, but often you can not. In that case you should choose the intelligent solution.

[deadalvs]

I came across this when I started many years ago dealing with 2D programs. I always preferred Corel Paint over Adobe Photoshop, simply because it was much more intuitive and actually had buttons for all of its operations, unlike PS which required you to memorize a ton of keyboard commands. Now, I'm much happier with Photoshop (once I got used to it )

Nowadays, I find myself preferring keyboard commands over mouse movements and clicking - it's faster and more efficient. I just hate the time it takes to memorize the keystrokes. Fortunately, most decent programs now allow you to customize your keyboard commands, so inevitably I set them to use the same commands for similar actions. The downside of this is that when I have to work on someone else's computer that's using the default commands, I'm completely lost...

a reason to unify the prefs in an office, not ?

* * *

deadalvs

[Thomas An.]

Well, what Mihai and Michael are alluding to is Intuitive vs "Productive".

For example, I have seen TimEllis doing some awesome detailed work here with Blender. Similarly, some of my peers in college would play Unix on their fingertips (knowing all shortcuts by heart). I came across some guys who were Linux gurus and there was nothing they could not do with Linux. Everything was a script away. Occasionally, if I get stuck on some problem I fire up VB6 and code myself out of the bottleneck. Also, once you learn Filemaker pro, the rewards are amazing (since everything is a form of database, there are so many commercial solutions that become obsolete; unnecessary). Similarly, back in the day when practicing 8086-8088 instruction sets it seemed much more powerful than higher level languages and I was looking at the C guys with pity.

The point here is that we are confusing performance through adaptation versus "intuitive".

Yes, I agree that specialized knowledge can lead to great speed gains ... but ... the issue still stands, that intuitive is a separate concept that should NOT be used lightly.

[michaelplogue]

a reason to unify the prefs in an office, not ?

In reality, I'd recommend to everyone to take time to learn and use the default prefs. If you are in this business professionally, you never know when you may have to go to another company to work, and if you become accustomed to using customized commands, you'll be hurting.

Being a solo hobbyist, I can get away with customizing, since I'm the only one who works on my systems. I tailor my commands to something that is more 'intuitive' to me than the defaults. It's just when I go to help out a friend, I end up feeling like a doob.......

I've actually got one of these programmable keypads packed away somewhere. I just need to break it out and re-program it.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... &CatId=536

.

[Mihai]

Nope, it is not separate In some cases it can be, but in many cases it isn't. You have to choose between making something work more intuitively, or in a more efficient, intelligent manner.

A step by step install guide is more intuitive.

A command line install is less intuitive.

When you have to install 30 applications, would you rather learn a one line command that would then automatically install all applications, or would you rather go through each step by step guide for each application?

This is not such a good example because you could give the user both options, but in UI design it's difficult. You have to choose a way for a tool or interface to work. If you start from the premise that "we should make it work so that the novice user is comfortable", you are inevitably giving up more or less on efficiency and productivity, which would interest the professional user.

In the end you may gain an easier adaptation for novice users, but in the long run you have designed something that is not as efficient as it could be. Sometimes you don't even gain that ease of use. For example, how many keyboard buttons/combinations do you need to know in Rhino to pan/zoom/rotate the camera?