I think it's not only the interactive elements, but also the way information is displayed. I actually think he (and others) might benefit from a really responsive desktop environment, especially compared to the Windows floating window manager.
The videos you linked to show this very well in my opinion:
- In the longer one with Hawking and the System he's using it to type and read Wikipedia, all the while quite some screen estate is wasted with (for him probably unusable) title bars, partially hidden desktop icons in the background and the browser partially behind his input software.
- The "data entry" video shows Notepad being opened and being partially hidden by the input UI.
That does not seem useful. I would rather use apps that automatically fit themselves to available space and predefined layouts for multiple apps or a dynamic tiling approach.
The videos you linked to show this very well in my opinion:
- In the longer one with Hawking and the System he's using it to type and read Wikipedia, all the while quite some screen estate is wasted with (for him probably unusable) title bars, partially hidden desktop icons in the background and the browser partially behind his input software.
- The "data entry" video shows Notepad being opened and being partially hidden by the input UI.
That does not seem useful. I would rather use apps that automatically fit themselves to available space and predefined layouts for multiple apps or a dynamic tiling approach.