R.I.P. WYSIWYG - Results-Oriented UI Coming (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox): Personally I think saying goodbye to WYSIWYG in favour of a results-oriented user interface (UI) may be a little premature. Now if Jakob Nielsen had said goodbye to WYSIWYG in favour of WYSIRN (in other words, creating format-free content in XML using a nice user-friendly interface), I would have been the first to applaud.
The results-oriented interfaces that currently exist (layout templates in PowerPoint and Publisher) really annoy me, as I normally have a different layout in mind, and possess the design and software skills to produce it. I suppose a results-oriented UI will be fine if you can turn it off, but will that option be available?
Maybe they should just create two types of software, one for people who can actually use computers, and one for everyone else. Microsoft have actually done this with the Control Panel feature in Windows - you get the dumbed-down version by default, but you can turn it off and revert to "Classic" view. There's also the option of actually learning to use software properly by doing a tutorial, rather than just diving in and expecting to know where everything is.
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