Re: UI design [was Owen Taylor's paper]

> >    I suppose you read (with great care) every ad that pops up in front
> > of you, then?
> No i block them.....like i said if the dialogs are not relaying
> information to you...you shouldn't be seeing them. Im very sure the ads
> I see carry no valuable information to me so either block them or have
> them opened in a tab of my browser out of my way.

   If you automatically block them, how do you even know what they have
to say?  How do you know whether or not they're important?  And what a
plasma physicist may find unimportant, my Great Aunt Tillie might really
need to know.

> Some dialogs are useful, while other messages (or UI
> > issues) are not; regardless, all should be consistent.  One thing that
> > pisses the #$@# out of me is the six or seven combinations of hotkeys I
> > need to press to get my current app to close.  Ctrl-Q?  Alt-W?  Ctrl-W?
> > Ctrl-D?  Etc, etc.
>
> hot keys are different...hot keys have no visual clues you can use while
> using them.  Buttons...menus....yout have to look at them to use
> them...you should be parsing more than the relative locations you should
> be parsing the labels.

   I agree that reading labels is important, but the honest-to-god truth
of the matter is that 95% of people that use computers don't do that or
*want* to do that for every single dialog box that pops up.  We should
take as a given that these people are going to zip through the boxes,
and plan for that.  Make the buttons consistent; don't piss your users
off by putting a "No" box where the "Yes" box usually is and aid them in
"No"t saving all the changes they just made to their research paper.

   Someone clicking through a dialog box without thinking is like
pulling a rolling stop at a Stop sign.  We all know we should stop and
look and double-check to see what's going on, but in reality we just
slow down, give it a quick glance and keep going.  That's human nature,
and inconsistent dialog boxes are just going to piss people off.

> Well when we get a connection directly to the human brain we can skip
> all this desktop layout issue crap that gets in the way and do just what
> you want with a single thought.  Talk about enhanced usability for
> disabled computer users!  The desktop idea we've been stuck on for what
> 20 years now is limiting im many ways...we need something
> better.....before I go blind.
[ snip ]
> > here that UI consistency is a Good Thing (tm), then I can save time down
> > the road by fighting less with seemingly-random apps. :)
>
> I didnt say it wasnt a good thing...i just think its pretty low down on
> the linux world domination todo list.  I'd rather see Redhat promote a
> strong application set in their default menus across KDE/Gnome that
> people can use instead of a less functional set of applications that
> differs across the desktops but have a consistant UI.  Since whole
> thread is based on Redhat priorities...application strength versus UI
> purity...across the two desktops.  Is there a performance hit by using
> UI incompatible apps under one desktop...yes sure there is.  But is that
> performance hit really that important compared to providing a strong set
> of default apps in the menus....i agree with Redhat that the UI
> consistancy stuff isn't so important.

The goal: Get 1 million dollars
Today:    You see a $20 bill sitting on the floor.

Question: Do you pick it up?  According to you, you wait until you find
a check for the full amount sitting on the ground in front of you.

   Yes, prioritize, but if there are people that are willing to make the
UI consistent, but are unable (or unwilling) to write the next great
Killer App (tm), don't tell them that their work is unimportant.  Just
because someone is spending time enforcing consistency among a(the)
desktop(s), doesn't mean they should drop what they're doing and start
working on the Whiz-Bang CPU-to-cerebellum UI hardware/software.

</soapbox>

-jdm

Department of Computer Science, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0129
Email:  [email protected]