Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
ost current Uls are fairly similar and belong to one of two common types: either the traditional alphanumeric full-screen terminals with a keyboard and function keys, or the more modern WIMP workstations with windows,/cons, menus, and a pointing device. In fact, most UI standards released since 1983 have been remarkably similar, and it is that category of canonical windOw system that is referred to as "current" throughout this article. In contrast, the next generation of UIs may move beyond the standard WIMP paradigm to involve elements such as virtual realities, head-mounted displays, sound and speech, pen and gesture recognition, animation and multimedia, limited artificial intelligence, and highly portable computers with cellular or other wireless communication capabilities. It is difficult to envision the use of this hodgepodge of technologies in a single, united UI design, and indeed, it may be one of the defining characteristics of nextgeneration UIs that they abandon the principle of conforming to a canonical interface style and instead become more radically tailored to the requirements of individual tasks. In any case, all previous generations of UIS, whether batch-, line-oriented, full-screen, or WIMP, have all had one defining characteristic in common: They were all
Jakob Nielsen (Thu,) studied this question.