The biggest problem with ‘text user interfaces’ was not the restriction of the screen to a text display, but the separation between the display and the input controls. Graphics alone, without a pointing device or touchscreen, aren’t much more useful, usable or engaging than pure text – remember the old ‘multimedia’ and games interfaces with numbered menus, etc?
Apart from the quality of the UI interface itself, a ‘graphics-driven’ approach allows for greater standardisation of controls and behaviours, and hence an easier learning curve. I think that’s the main reason why old-style minimum text interfaces have largely died out.
So the critical factor affecting my design approach would be more influenced by the interactivity the device offers, not merely a limitation on what the screen could represent. Face it, most of what is presented on a graphics screen is text, anyway. The new generation of e-book readers (Kindle, etc) are constrained from adopting ‘colour-and-movement’ GUIs and some of the interfaces are quite subtle and (almost) elegant as a result. I’d hope to go the same way.
In terms of the visual polish of the UI that resulted, the typography is most critical, and then the quality of the text itself.
Assuming that a quality text-based UI is possible, then I’d use the normal user-centred design approach. At least three iterations.
Źródło: Approach to Text User Interface Design?, IxDA list, David More
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