Question

The direct-manipulation systems have significantly evolved overtime, discuss some latest applications that benefit from using direct-manipulation interfaces. Support your answer with suitable examples.

Answer 1

Direct manipulation system: A Direct-manipulation system is an interaction style that involves continuous representation and physical interaction like drag and drop, pull-up, pull-down, incremental and reversible actions. The interaction system is made to act like real-world manipulation and follows the same style throughout the system. i.e., The system is portrayed as an extension of the real world.

Latest application:

1. Paint / Procreate / Adobe illustrator / Autodesk Sketchbook - All these applications are used for drawing and illustrations, which portray and follow the real-world drawing on a paper system where the display acts as a paper, and apple pencil or stylus acts as a pencil or colored pen or sketch pen, etc. This benefits from eliminating the physical colors, papers, and many other tools and replicated by a display and stylus.
2. Smartphone / Computer UI: Almost all smartphones and computers use direct manipulation systems in their UI and UX to decrease the learning curve required for using these gadgets. The cursor and touch replicated hand movements on screen and gestures add more features while keeping the natural manipulations alive. Also, it benefits big tech companies and social media companies to get more users on their platform.

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