WYSIAYG

WYSIAYG is a pejorative description of a computer program's user interface. The term stands for "what you see is "all" you get"—a variation on the term WYSIWYG ("what you see is "what" you get").

The term primarily addresses retail software with a visual, "point-and-shoot"-style interface that tends to have an easy initial learning curve, but also lacks advanced features. Software designed to help novice users can frustrate advanced users who would be better served by a more direct interface.

This term is most often applied to text editors, word processors and document formatting programs. Retail desktop publishing programs, for example, are useful for creating small documents with multiple fonts and many graphics, like newsletters and presentation slides. The same programs are perceived as less useful when typesetting book-length manuscripts, although this is not inherent in user-friendly programs, as powerful GUI document systems such as FrameMaker amply prove. The scale of a project changes the nature of the task, and relatively unsophisticated software may not include the necessary features.

"Based on an article from Jargon File."

ee also

*WYSIWYG