My main complaint is that metaphor is a poor metaphor for what needs ot be done.
At PARC we coined the phrase user illusion to describe what we were about when
designing user interface. There are clear connotations to the stage, theatrics,
and magic---all of which give much stronger hints as to the direction to be
followed. For example, the screen as "paper to be marked on" is a metaphor that
suggests pencils, brushes, and typewriting. Fine, as far as it goes. But it is
the magic—understandable magic—that really counts. Should we transfer the paper
metaphor so perfectly that the screen is as hard as paper to erase and change?
Clearly not. If it is to be like magical paper, then it is the magical part that
is all important and that must be most strongly attended to in the user
interface design.
While the magic is being designed, the very idea of a paper "metaphor" should be
scrutinized mercilessly. One of the most wonderful properties of a computer is
that no matter how many dimensions one's information has, a computer
representation can always supply at least one more. One result is that any
seeming distance between items in our world of limited dimension can be
completely "disappeared."
This Is something that Vannevar Bush and his chief prophet Doug Englebart
noticed immediately, and hypermedia was born. In a world of Dynabooks,
information will not be printed---it would destroy most of the useful
associations---and something much more than superpaper will emerge. The notion
of hypermedia is much more a "user illusion" than a "metaphor."