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[[[ms .FP lucidasans . \" no header . \" .ds CH " . .HTML "Survey: Plan 9 and Touch User Interfaces" .TL Survey: Plan 9 and Touch User Interfaces .AU Joel Fridolin Meyer joel@sirjofri.de .AI .AB The user interface of Plan 9 is mostly designed for computer systems with standard human interface devices like a computer monitor, mouse and keyboard. However, many—if not most—computer systems nowadays come with a touchscreen as the only hardware interface for the user. Since many users have different ideas for touchscreen systems and also different user interfaces, in order to design a solid user interface it is important to understand what the most important components and features are and what users think of touchscreen devices. This report presents the results from a survey that was done in 2023. .AE ]]] # The survey The survey was sent to the mailing lists of 9fans and 9front. Furthermore, it was shared on some social media channels, namely the 9fans Discord and on the Fediverse. To better capture the users' opinion the answers were not restricted to predefined values—any user could add new answers and add more details. Due to this nature it is hard to just drop numbers to summarize the results of the survey. Therefore the results will be quoted directly. # Questions and answers Many answers to the questions of the survey depend on the level of experience of the user. Because of that, the first question is about the level of experience of that user. For the answers of the subsequent features I'll add the experience level of that user next to their answer, like this: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥. The answers are fully quoted, including mistakes. ## Level of experience ‥Please rate your level of experience with Plan 9‥ (0 - just started using it, everything is new to me; 10 - I write kernel code and use the system daily) - 3/10: I have installed it, played around with it and done some C programming with it, consuming API's, trying out libthread. I want to figure out how auth works properly and start using it distributed-ly at some point (adventuresin9 serves as inspiration). - 6/10: I've been using 9front as daily driver since two years ago. i have been pretty much using it as a terminal (vncv, ssh, rd) until few months ago, however recently started to write code and some patches :) - ‥(“A”)‥ I had 9front working on a laptop for a short while, but didn't use it too much. Now I have it on my VPS, and drawterm in. (I'd like to set up a grid when I have a better understanding.) I can get by making little C programs with the manpages, and am good at using Acme to do that. But I wouldn't say I know 9 too well yet, especially messing with namespaces, and all the syadmin stuff. Have a DNS server (am my own nameserver), rc-httpd set up, and have made my own rc-gopherd :) Am currently reading, trying to find out the best way to have it run as a user other than none (remove from /rc/bin/services & add in /cfg/$sysname/cpurc ?), and where to store the data (/sys seems wrong, I don't get why rc-httpd defaults to there, /lib seems better, but if I'm going to be doing users $home might be best (which may get mounted over /lib?)) - 5/10: I have been using it as one of my servers erika 9atom. Mostly used for serving files anf controlling custom devices via serial ports - 8/10: I use the system daily but do not code. - 5/10: i'm an “expert” but i don't program. - 9/10: very little in the kernel but I know it very well as soon as you hit /sys/src/cmd - 1/10: I just started using Plan 9 a few weeks ago but often share it with my friends. - 5-6/10: I've some cpu+auth servers as remote servers, a thinkpad x280 and a raspi2 running only 9front (both as desktops). Plan 9 is not (still) my daily driver for real working but for personal use. Anyway in the last year I've expended more time in 9front compared with openbsd for my personal/important things and I've learned tons of “new” things! - 7-8/10: Probably a 7 with aspiration to 8. Hosting everything on 9 while using it as a daily driver. I'm just not that experienced with programming things beside userland. - 2/10: i don't use the system daily, but ocasionally find myself booting 9front and browsing through the system sources. i have previously set up a file/auth server as a way to learn more about the system. i also joined the sdf plan 9 bootcamp. - 3/10: I've used acme and sam from plan9port every day at work for the past few years. But I've never had much opportunity to really use Plan 9 proper apart from setting up a Raspberry Pi on my home network and using it for DNS, DHCP and a basic file server. - 2/10: I use it every then and now, but never long enough to really settle in and remember the details on how things are working. I'm an avid user of plan9port though on Linux and FreeBSD. ## Importance of features The first question is about features of Plan 9 and how important they are for the user experience of the user. The question provides a list of a few features (namespaces, plumber, text interfaces, GUI, mouse interaction), the user was free to add more features to this list. (Quoted:) ‥Please tell me how important the following features are for your personal user experience‥. Give them weighted values from 0 (not important) to 5 (very important). ### Namespaces - 4/5: What attracted me to 9. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - 5/5: Indeed useful in a server. ‥(EL: 6/10)‥ - 2.5/5: In clients, not yet sure how'd i find them useful in such evinronment. ‥(EL:6/10)‥ - I haven't fiddled with these yet ‥(“A”)‥ - 3/5: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - 5/5: ‥(EL: 8/10)‥ - 5/5: ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - 4/5: not terribly familiar with them but believe they are fairly important ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - 5/5: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - They’re incredibly powerful, I would miss them a great deal if they were not afforded in some manner. ‥(EL: 9/10)‥ - 5/5: the entire reason I'm here ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - 5/5: I really like the complete isolation! ‥(EL: 5-6/10)‥ - 5/5: ‥(EL: 7-8/10)‥ - 2/5: but only because i haven't used them much. overall, i think namespaces are a very important part of plan 9 system design. ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ - 5/5: ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - 1/5: Whilst I recognise much of the system is built up using namespaces, my single-node single-user instance does not really take advantage of manipulating process' namespace. I don't need to pull in resources from other users or different machines. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - 4/5: the thing I miss most when working on non-Plan 9 systems ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ - 5/5: ‥(EL: 7/10)‥ - 5/5: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ ### Plumber (including integration of plumber) - 2/5: I haven't worked on configuring to my needs yet. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - 3.5/5: Useful in some cases, (page, acme, mothra); not sure ofit's usefulness in some other cases (zuke? mail? etc). ‥(EL: 6/10)‥ - 0/5: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - 4/5: ‥(EL: 8/10)‥ - 2/5: I would use it more if there were more apps to plumb to. ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - 3/5: ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - 5/5: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - I’ve found myself creating Plumbers for years in some variety and I’ve never come close to uncrowning what Plan9 built in ‥(EL: 9/10)‥ - 4/5: quite convenient ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - 5/5: We can't simply live without plumbing and it's a feature that I miss a lot when I need to switch to openbsd or linux ‥(EL: 5-6/10)‥ - 5/5: I love to think about the beauty of this concept. ‥(EL: 7-8/10)‥ - 4/5: as someone said before, “it's xdg-open done right”. ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ - 3/5: ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - 4/5: At first I didn't think I used this much. But when I thought about it more, I realised that it is so integral to my workflow that I forget that it is there. Imagine using a web browser without hyperlinks. That is what it feels like when I don't have plumber running. Text on my screen is always referring to something I understand - a number in a bug tracker, an email address, a URL, a file path - so the ability to plumb the text regardless from where it comes from feels natural. Using applications without plumber integration feels like reading a book; it's 'dumb' and feels non-interactive. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - 5/5: I like it so much I use it everywhere via Plan 9 port, although general desktop integration is not existant. ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ - 5/5: ‥(EL: 7/10)‥ - 5/5: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ ### Text interfaces (rio window, shell) - 4/5: I only use acme and rio, but feel more comfortable in emacs :P. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - 5/5: Important for reasons you'd guess. ‥(EL: 6/10)‥ - 5/5: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - 4/5: The shell and rio heterodyne into something better than either of them alone ‥(EL: 8/10)‥ - 5/5: but mostly because the current tools are heavily text based ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - 5/5: ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - 5/5: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - I don’t need a textual interface, so long as I can task effectively ‥(EL: 9/10)‥ - 5/5: follows the unix philosophy ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - 4/5: I'm quite happy with the interface but we need to improve some things (shortcuts for example, and I'm not talking about using tab for autocomplete) ‥(EL: 5-6/10)‥ - 5/5: more dedicated to the typical 9 shell, not a rio fan per se ‥(EL: 7-8/10)‥ - 4/5: text interface is pretty flexible, very good to have in some cases (to do repetative tasks, for example). ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ - 5/5: ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - 5/5: Expressing things as text is integral to my work and personal life because it's language. It's how we communicate more and more (for better or for worse!). A text interface - one whose operations are language - lets me share information easily with others. I find that if I can't write something down clearly as text then it's probably not so clear in the first place. Clarity in my communication is really important for me personally and at work. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - 3/5: text everywhere goes great with the plumber ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ - 5/5: ‥(EL: 7/10)‥ - 4/5: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ ### The GUI in general (are you a pure text guru?) - 1/5: I haven't used many gui apps, and didn't like page (no continuous scrolling, text search though I get that's not its role). ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - 4/5: I think GUI is a neat feature as long it keeps both both graphics and text acessible, acme for example. but i'm fine with either GUI or CLI (not TUI :D) ‥(EL: 6/10)‥ - 4/5: mostly care about text. I have accumulated a lot of custom programs and scripts that takes advantage of ncurses gnu enhancements that would require a bit re thinking to move plan9 ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - 3/5: Anyone who claims not to GUI is a fat liar ‥(EL: 8/10)‥ - 5/5: even if just to have windows with different namespaces, or for managing different tasks ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - 1/5: ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - 3/5: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - I am ambivalent. Textual interfaces in the current paradigm lend themselves to heavier mouse usage than I can tolerate due to RSI, but well designed widget system on a touch-input device can feel quite potent ‥(EL: 9/10)‥ - 5/5: I like how it's easy to build new GUIs ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - 4/5: rio is simple, functional but still we need to improve some things (perhaps more ricing, more libraries, less complexity to build gui/tui programs) ‥(EL: 5-6/10)‥ - 1/5: I was about to drop GUI (X11) all together while using UNIX. Then I got into 9 and I accept the usage of GUI elements, but I would wish for a more simple concept to replace it. ‥(EL: 7-8/10)‥ - 5/5: gui is a primary way i interact with plan 9, so yeah. i think gui is the way to go for a modern os. while text interfaces still have their place (e.g. for headless servers or lightweight vms), gui makes interaction with the system much clearer and simpler. ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ - 3/5: ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - 5/5: A terminal emulator feels 'dumb'. Not being able to select and edit the text that was printed before feels antiquated. Re: GUI, even with books and photo prints I can lay them out how I like on a table. When I can't do that it feels unnatural and primitive. Being able to show loads of things on my screen at once and arrange them how I like is so much easier than setting things up in “the real world”. If I'm working on some video software, it is so much more convenient to open a little window with the video rather than bringing in an entire display! If I send family travel photos I like having the photos, a map and a text editing window open to reply and add info. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - 2/5: I have not much experience with Plan 9 GUI ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ - 3/5: ‥(EL: 7/10)‥ - 4/5: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ ### Mouse interaction (chording, etc.) - 3/5: Feels awkward in rio using rc but I like using it in acme. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - 4/5: Having mouse interaction is a nice idea. mixing input methods to gain faster ways to communicate with system i believe is a nice way. however it's clear methods that plan 9 are dependent are upon are quite hard to “assume” these days. mouse users don't have a mouse or a trackpoint, let alone a 3 button one. ‥(EL: 6/10)‥ - I'd find it hard to rate these seperately, 9's UI is very focused on using the mouse & text together, and textual GUIs. I find 9's way of doing UI great, finally a break from typewriters & gooey GUIs. But, the system could work with other GUIs, there's no reason to stay married to what we have. Right now 9 is very "there is one choice", esp. true with rio. Honestly I'd love to try a rich-text window, it's always been a dream of mine, though I have no idea if it'd be useful. I've been thinking of making a Win 3.1 or old Mac style file browser, purely for fun. Visual "shell scripts" are an idea I've had, pipeing data to/from files, through programs etc would suit a graphical flow-chart interface well I think. ‥(“A”)‥ - 5/5: I find plan9 gui is a lot more straight forward than X or windows ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - 2/5: I don't chord at all, ever ‥(8/10)‥ - 3/5: I like having a pointing device, but the “3 button mouse” is restrictive and choding is okay on a trackball, but I find it tiring with a mouse ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - 3/5: ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - 3/5: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - I really dislike using a mouse. It’s just too much cause for physical pain ‥(EL: 9/10)‥ - 0/5: I believe mouse chording needs updating. It feels antiquated. I don't even have a mouse, I'm sometimes even using a trackpad without proper mouse buttons. Most of the friends I recommend plan 9 to, either want to go keyboard only (they come from ncurses interfaces), lack a mouse or a trackpad with proper mouse buttons, or are using touchscreens. ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - 2/5: well, this is quite uncommon to me → to use the mouse all the time for working. I really don't like [to] use the mouse only for cut/snarf/paste, I want rio to manage this with keyboard shortcuts as well. The same for acme… I'm coming from edit.com, notepad, vi, and now helix and I'm still struggling using the mouse for editing some lines in a file. ‥(EL: 5-6/10)‥ - 1/5: Hated it on UNIX like systems. Tolerating it in 9 environments since it opens other beautiful concepts. Not a advocate in philosophical terms though. ‥(EL: 7-8/10)‥ - 4/5: mouse is pretty simple to interact with, plays nice with plan 9 gui design, but i think that the whole thing is already a bit obsolete. with the rise of touch interfaces and small screens this three button mouse model doesn't perform that well (e.g. drawterm on android is not a very smooth experience). ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ - 2/5: ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - 3/5: It's important because it is how I select what to interact with on the display. But using a trackpad which lets me scroll with 2 fingers feels natural and easy. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - 4/5: this is necessary on Plan 9 to compensate the vestigial keyboard control; on non-Plan 9 systems I use the mouse primarily in the browser or in sam, but plumbing the selection via mouse is quite works well, too ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ - 4/5: ‥(EL: 7/10)‥ - 3/5: ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ ### Others (tell me/add them to the list) - (“fake”) filesystems! this is like, the most important part of 9! small tools that allow everything to be scripted! (though there are a couple tools missing that have C-only impls.) plus, just the KISS nature of it all. when I try to set up & navigate a Linux systems there's so many things to know, each of which you could spend months mastering. when programming, even simple things have silly complex APIs with stupid interfaces. so much config.... and everything disagrees how things should work, and, even with the massive configs, you often get little choice about how things work. ‥(“A”)‥ - Useable /dev/* files … just thinking /dev/snarf, /dev/text, … ‥(EL: 7-8/10)‥ - Shipping with source (src(1)) ‥(EL: 7-8/10)‥ - listen(8) is a wonderful concept. Just writing a fast tcp80 is something that was way too burdensome on UNIX like systems. ‥(EL: 7-8/10)‥ - Probably plenty others… but overall the simplicity of concept is the feature I care most about. ‥(EL: 7-8/10)‥ - 5/5: factotum: it would only benefit from a more clear interface, however. ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ - 5/5: fossil+venti history: ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - 5/5: source code at my fingertips and small enough to read & understand it all ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - The 'everything in user-space' paradigm. E.g. implementing an AX.25 network stack as a user process. ‥(EL: 7/10)‥ ## Ultra-text-based systems or widget-based systems? ‥Do you prefer ultra-text-based systems like acme, sam, shell, or purely widget-based systems like fgui, mothra?‥ - Haven't used any of the widget based systems. I'm not in love with text apps either, since I haven't yet suited the plumber to my needs. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - 4/5: i like the idea that you may copy text from everywhere and edit it, however i'm not sure how graphics fit in it, since neither sam nor acme can display images in themselves. ‥(EL: 6/10)‥ - 1/5: not a fan of pure widget-systems. ‥(EL: 6/10)‥ - I've not heard of fgui or used sam yet. Mothra serves it's purpose of just having a web browser to keep people happy, but I think it's designed in a very non-9 way. I'm not quite sure how it'd work, but ideally there'd be a standalone graphical html viewer (like `page`?), mothra is just a barebones copy of your regular monolith browser. ‥(“A”)‥ - Mostly use ed+9term ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - acme should burn. I am a sam user. I require all of my input devices to be supported and useful. Any system which excludes one was designed by short-sighted children and is not suitable for adult use. ‥(EL: 8/10)‥ - Depends on the task. Text is fine when writing and compiling code. But websites are easier with point and click. I do miss being able to drag and drop files. I find that easier and faster than typing out paths. ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - Depends on the system. In general, I prefer text interactions. But if I want to draw a picture I'd rather draw the picture then use text to accomplish the same means ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - text, in general, but it depends on what you're doing. for example, photos aren't text; the metaphor breaks down. ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - I prefer text-based systems. I do not think mothra and other type of widgets fit plan9's original style or design. The other problem is that it's currently impossible for me to adjust fonts with mothra without recompiling the software. My vision is poor, so I need larger fonts. Also, the default font in mothra lacks Chinese characters, so it doesn't work on some of the websites I visit. ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - I have no preference about a ultra-text-based system like acme or sam or even the shell but sometimes I miss some features from more recent editors (aye, I'm talking about some code colors, some helpers and things a la fgui, mothra). I'm thinking in some sort of advanced acme editor with menus, colors, status bar… (I'm not talking about advanced features like linting or lsp because is not even required to me, but in a ideal world that would be huge, hehe) ‥(EL: 5-6/10)‥ - ultra-ultra-text-based, I use sam -d. I also use a custom text only web browser ‥(EL: 7-8/10)‥ - acme's approach to interface was initially a very odd thing for me, but now i think it's very interesting and i would like to see it used in some other places too. i also think that it would benefit from having the ability to display proper graphics. my only annoyance with libframe based graphical programs now is that they wrap text on characters instead doing that on word boundaries. i tried to fix it once, but due to my lack of expertise i failed. ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ - text ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - I prefer text-based systems for computing, but that's more about my inclination towards language and communication of info. There's nothing quite like pushing a big red button and loads of magic happening; it's how I start my motorbike and I like that a lot. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - I mostly prefer text-based (!= cursor-addressed) UI, even on non-Plan 9 systems. ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ - I lean hard towards text, mostly as avoidance of gratuitous GUI noise. But graphical interfaces have a place, and can be very effecient and useful if implemented wisely. ‥(EL: 7/10)‥ - I lean towards text-based. ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ ## Opinions about devices with different screen sizes ‥When you think about computer systems with touchscreen interfaces, about which of the following systems do you think immediately? Tell me more about your thoughts of the others.‥ - smartphone & tablet. Nintendo DSi & WiiU. styluses generally make them better as fingers are imprecise, get in the way of vision, & swiping with them isn't always the best. ‥(“A”)‥ - mostly just tablet or phone. ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - LCARS. All I want is LCARS. ‥(EL: 8/10)‥ - Smartphone is my first thought ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - My first thought for touchscreen for plan9 though is definitely a smart phone! ‥(EL: 9/10)‥ - I think of smart phones (80% of the time) and tablets (20% of the time). That's what my friends are using. They are not trying to connect with any other type of device. Those are the cheapest and most common. ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - I don't care about the screen size because if the interface can be controlled with a touch system, I'll like to run 9front anyway. ‥(EL: 5-6/10)‥ - That one [smartphone]! Although I personally don't own any touchscreen devices. ‥(EL: 7-8/10)‥ - well, because i use smartphone frequently, something like it comes to mind. sometimes i think about how would plan 9 on a smartphone look like. but again, this mouse+keyboard model doesn't fit well with what smartphones are (plugging in external mouse and keyboard seems unwieldy). ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ - tablet; that's the only one I use ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - I immediately think of smart phones, because that's the kind of touchscreen I interact most often with. ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ - small screen is the first I think of immediately, followed by mixed big screen, standalone big screen, then very small screen, and finally others, which include annoying teach screens like some gas station pumps, some ATM machines, and kiosks at airports, museums, etc. ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ ### Very small screen: smart watch - Don't use it, seems cumbersome to me. - 1/5: i assume these have 16-512 mb of ram, while plan 9 will work better on 16 mb of ram than unixen, i'm not sure what use it'll have on a 1-2 inch display, or what a hackable smartwatch running on plan 9 might have. ‥(EL: 6/10)‥ - I don't really get making these touch, too small. The ones with physical buttons or the swiping-the-side thing are much better. ‥(“A”)‥ - I find Smart watch too small to be useful except for simple things. ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - not that useful, could mostly be replaced by side buttons ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - To small to maintain the same user interface as other devices in my opinion. ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - sorry, i have zero experience with smart watches. ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - I consider a smart watch at best a “Second screen experience” […] that need[s] to be backed by a bigger system. (see below) ‥(EL: 9/10)‥ - impossible to use with human size fingers ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - Never. Boring reason: when you touch the screen, your finger covers the entire display. I’ve been wearing an analogue watch every day for the last 20 years. I immediately pre-ordered the first Apple Watch when it was announced. I got rid of it after about a year because I didn't use any of the features other than reading the date and time. Having the weather there was really cool actually. The touchscreen is there more as a convenience. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - Too small to be really useful, except for the simplest tasks ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ ### Small screen: smart phone - What I think about first, in particular iPhone. I prefer the very put-together and uncustomisable UI at this form factor. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - 4.5/5: most of my friends are most likely to have a phone. and it's one of the places that i believe plan 9 can shine and put unixen TUI/CLI interfaces in shame, it'd be wonderful if interface were consistant between touch UI an desktop UI, but with input methods adjusted for each one. (for example, swipe with to fingers to chord-copy) ‥(EL: 6/10)‥ - good for what they're generally used for, too small for serious work. ‥(“A”)‥ - my default touch screen experience ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - As someone who uses drawterm on android, I think the screen is still too small to take advantage of rio. However, there are still applications that could work. The issue is not having a 3 button mouse. Since my phone is of the inexpensive variety, the touchscreen does not have the accuracy necessary to make Rio practical. ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - no matter the answer, the truth is that any modern device such as this shares the same interface dna with ios (all tiny differences duly noted). i prefer android, but not for ui reasons. ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - ugh, how can anyone type with just their thumbs? ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - Sometimes. I still use my phone more for phone calls, sending short messages, alarms/reminders. Sometimes reading email. I love being able to shoot photo and video with a device that's just in my pocket. I don't really use any apps which serve media optimised for those small screens: Instagram/Twitter/Mastodon/TikTok etc. so a touch interface on my smart phone is not really a big deal for me. I'm not “doom scrolling” to see the next post all the time. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - Compromise between size and portability. Too small for serious work, but sufficient for mobile communication and idle browsing/procrastination. ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ ### Standalone big screen: tablet - I don't use it but would use it for reading and annotating PDF's‥[sic!]‥. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - 4/5: same points as small screen ‥[“most of my friends…”]‥ ‥(EL: 6/10)‥ - very nice, I have an old one with a magnetic-attach keyboard which would be lovely if it could handle newer, greedy software. ‥(“A”)‥ - I want to like tablets, but haven't found a good use case ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - This could be cool. Some of the functionality of the 3 button mouse could be emulated with multiple fingers. The size would be big enough where Rio could be an excellent choice. ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - no matter the answer, the truth is that any modern device such as this shares the same interface dna with ios (all tiny differences duly noted). i prefer android, but not for ui reasons. ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - just about usable provided there's instantaneous feedback to every touch ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - Always. This is my favourite touch interface. I love my iPad because it's like an interactive book. I don't need to scroll so much to see stuff. 2 people can view and use it at the same time because the display is bigger and UI elements are more spaced out. I love reading stuff with my girlfriend on the iPad, pointing to stuff, and having it play or go to another article. I think the software isn't quite there to be able to use it more than an interactive book (yet?). Touchscreens are really intuitive - we can all point to things - so it is especially jarring when something feels clunky. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - Works well for some tasks, but for text-based interactions generally inferior to a proper keyboard. I have never combined a tablet with a keyboard though, although I imagine this could work for me. ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ - For some applications [radio control software], a touch screen monitor overlaying a GUI would make a very natural and efficient control interface. With that [proper interface with switching matrix and pictorial diagrams of radio components] in place, it becomes the natural control interface as well. With a touch-screen overlay, establishing a path from radio to antenna can be as simple as a finger-press on the radio followed by a finger press on the antenna. Yes, it's just mouse clicks in disguise, but the display can also consolidate other information that helps guide the selection of the appropriate radio and antenna in the moment. By keeping your focus in one place, you become much more efficient in "driving" the setup. This is a very important aspect when operating in contests, where maximizing contacts per minute is everything. In that context, even the act of finding, moving, and clicking the mouse is a distraction, and distractions cost points. ‥(EL: 7/10)‥ ### Mixed big screen: desktop computer with mouse/keyboard in combination with a touch screen - I suppose it could be useful in a classroom? ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - 3.5/5: not really sure ‥(EL: 6/10)‥ - used one of these for most of my younger years, could watch TV & DVDs on it too! the perfect multimedia device :P was probably the only device well suited to Windows 8, they were a perfect match. There were quite a few games that it was superb for. I don't know what it'd be useful for beyond that. ‥(“A”)‥ - And touch screen desktop feels weird to me ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - not enough experience to have an opinion ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - Personally, I think this is the best combination currently. In this case the touchscreen is best for quick interactions. ‥(EL: 1/10)‥ - thinkpad x1 yoga is a very happy medium between all form factors. i don't really use the touch screen for touching; rather, i draw with the stylus. ‥(EL: 5/10)‥ - I can imagine some applications where this would be useful, for example VLSI layout ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - Never. But I have tried many times. When I was in deep concentration, I caught myself accidentally trying to touch the screen or use the keyboard and not doing really what I wanted. I think because despite knowing in my head what I wanted to do, I accidentally chose a tool with the wrong precision (touch versus mouse). ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - Touchscreen is almost completely unused. The screen position is usually optimized for other input methods, having to raise the arms all the time to use the touchscreen sounds exhausting. A solution would be to have the screen be easily moveable via an adjustable mount, but the big screens are rather heavy, so I don't expect it to be very practical. ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ ### Others: for example, big whiteboard, media table - Again, may be useful in classrooms and presentations. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - 2/5: never even saw those irl :) ‥(EL: 6/10)‥ - Don't really have any comments on these. Projector with pen whiteboards, later smartboards (running Android, but just used for the drawing, browser & then as a second display) seem to just serve their purpose. ‥(“A”)‥ - not enough experience to have an opinion ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - for really big display I think I'd rather wave my hands around & point at things, not touch ‥(EL: 10/10)‥ - Sometimes. My French teacher used an interactive whiteboard in cool ways. She would set up lots of boards in advance of our classes. In class we would write, move cards around, play music, play video, all together. Having all that stuff ready to go in advance and letting us all do it together made learning boring stuff, like verb conjugations, interactive and fun! Best teacher I ever had. ‥(EL: 3/10)‥ - Science Fiction :) Far too expensive for too little gain. Also, pretty exhausting to work with for a whole day. ‥(EL: 2/10)‥ # Results It is possible to calculate the average importance of features of the Plan 9 operating systems using the answers of the users and their level of experience. The following listing contains two scores for each feature: The weighted score is the average based on the answer and the level of experience of the user. The second score is the average value without any weight. Answers without number are ignored in the calculation. - Namespaces: 2.27/5 (weighted); 4.15/5 - Plumber: 1.85/5 (weighted); 3.72/5 - Text interfaces: 2.36/5 (weighted); 4.56/5 - The GUI: 1.70/5 (weighted); 3.31/5 - Mouse interaction: 1.43/5 (weighted); 2.88/5 [[[ms .LP ]]] It is also possible to split the answers into two groups based on their level of experience (EL): - Namespaces: EL>5: 8 → 4.69/5; EL≤5: 9 →3.67/5 - Plumber: EL>5: 7 → 3.93/5; EL≤5: 9 → 3.56/5 - Text interfaces: EL>5: 7 → 4.71/5; EL≤ 5: 9 → 4.44/5 - The GUI: EL>5: 7 → 3.29/5; EL≤5: 9 → 3.33/5 - Mouse interaction: EL>5: 7 → 2.57/5; EL≤5: 9 → 3.11/5 [[[ms .LP ]]] For further calculations and research it is possible to evaluate all the answers of the users. # Other relevant user comments Due to the nature of a free text survey various people gave even deeper insights and knowledge that have are relevant enough to mention here. In addition to that, one user pointed out that the BlackBerry 10 has an almost perfect touchscreen interface and it's worth looking at it for further inspiration. - Talking touchscrens, I've always imagined a tablet-sized device (or slightly larger?) which a stylus. The stylus having the three mouse buttons & scroll-wheel on it, so you could use it like a regular mouse. Would sound perfect for 9. - I use 9front on a device with a touch screen. I was shocked that the touchscreen was supported. - Faithful reproduction of an application is another thing I find as a sticking point for this. Drawterm, for example on a phone, will try to slap an application front and center with controls wired into it, and you lose anything that makes working on a touch interface beneficial. An abstraction of Window itself seems to be the best place to poke the bear. - I prefer whatever matches the setup. for example, if I have a keyboard, I strongly prefer keyboard-centric controls wherever applicable. If I have a pen/stylus, I have a strong preference for widgets or easily accessible nested menu systems. - I think of touchscreen interfaces in various capacities. I consider a smart watch at best a “Second screen experience”, adding small buttons/inputs that need to be backed by a bigger system. I would love that exact same thing for about the smart phone size of computing devices. My first thought for touchscreen for plan9 though is definitely a smart phone! - When I think about this I dream about a program which is basically a on screen keyboard that I can touch. That would be awesome because if we can control rio with our fingers, we can run rc commands, open some nice gui interfaces or even read a pdf with page, scrolling the file the same way as the phone (sort of). Even control the mouse menus with a touch system would be super valuable. - Touch devices could just not exist and it wouldn't bother me. I prefer mice and keyboards (or a keyboard with trackpoint, avoiding the mouse). - For Plan9, I can currently get most of the way there [touch interface for radio control] simply by making the touch screen device appear as a mouse in /dev; the OS and rio take care of the rest. I haven't really considered how I might want to change the OS or rio, because to this point there has been no need to. This is the joy of namespaces and bind(). Anything that wants to be a mouse, can be. # Thanks Many thanks to anyone who participated in the survey.