Found at “What next?” on 2026-11-04T12:13:07+01:00.

(…) in the last forty years we’ve taken the computer user, who was initially in direct control of a dedicated computer, operating it by switches and gazing at huge arrays of blinking lights, to greater and greater distances from the computer and direct interaction with it, then back again to contemplating a virtual control panel on a glowing screen filled with slide pots, radio buttons, meters, all providing direct and expressive control over what’s going on inside the computer.

What’s a good UI model, then? Conversation?

(…) conversation is the wrong model for dealing with a computer–a model which misleads inexperienced users and invites even experienced software designers to build hard-to-use systems. Because the computer has a degree of autonomy and can rapidly perform certain intellectual tasks we find difficult, since inception we’ve seen computers as possessing attributes of human intelligence