On the Aesthetics of Outliners, Pims, and Personal Knowledge Applications

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Oct 26, 2009 at 07:07 PM

Chris Thompson wrote:
>I’d definitely agree that color and other visual
>distractions can affect usability. Sometimes I switch my monitor to greyscale
>(using the built in OS X facility for this or a program called Nocturne) and it is
>surprising how a lack of color cues helps the mind to focus… much more than one would
>expect. I imagine part of the appeal of full screen modes and retro text apps is the lack
>of visual distractions to disrupt the subconscious.

I couldn’t agree more.

By far the best screen for writing I have ever used was an orange Hercules (720?348) monitor in DOS days. My eyes never got tired and I spent innumerable hours looking at it. Many years later I learnt that the orange wavelength used by that monitor was the one the human eye is most sensitive to; therefore the brightness required for viewing was very low compared to any other colour. That, in addition to the clean interface provided by the appas available those days (compare Lotus 123 for DOS to Excel for Windows), was for me paradise.

Ever since I have tried to recreate a similar writing environment. Brainstorm is the closest I have got to that, with the added bonus of its text structuring functionalities.