Re: autocompletion

tis 2002-11-26 klockan 14.59 skrev Ricardo Fernández Pascual:
> In some cases there's no "right" way to do something[1]. I think this is
> one of those cases[2]. 

Usability is not an exact science. There are pros and cons with every
decision. It's not like algebra where most problems have exactly one
correct answer. But you can still produce scientific answers based on
other relevant scientific results, such as cognitive science,
psychology, or user studies, for example. If those results are in
conflict, you have to do a judgement inbetween them, and use other
factors such as your target audience, or GNOME:s target audience if you
prefer to think of your software as GNOME software, as a basis for the
decision. In that respect, there certainly can be a "good" or "less
good" decisions on almost any problem, and they can be more or less
supported by scientific results.

However, it's important to make a decision anyway. There's no need to
force the user to choose between different behaviors where just one
would probably be used by most people, and most people don't care and
don't want to care.
This specific case seems like an excellent example of that. Regardless
of which behavior you choose the deciscion on one of them will be better
than no deciscion at all (a visible preference that forces users that
don't want to care to decide between the behaviors that you yourself
couldn't decide on). So even if you think there is no "right" and
"wrong" answer in a specific case, it's still important to make a
deciscion.


Christian



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