Re: Display bigger version of a photo on a tooltip

[Steve Dobson <steve dobson syscall org uk>]

David

I've moved this discussion back to the F-Spot mail list as that the best
place for it.  Feature requests bug reports are not really the place to
discuss (argue) the various merits of an idea.

In a comment in bugziller
(http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=521546) David said:
> On Tue, 2008-03-11 at 08:20 +0000, Steve Dobson wrote:
> > On Mon, 2008-03-10 at 12:18 +0100, David Prieto wrote:
> > > I've just filed this as a feature request on bugzilla, but would like to
> > > know everyone's opinion on it: I recently discovered that pressing the
> > > "v" key while you hover over the browser brings up a bigger version of
> > > the photo, that also shows you the photo's comment and some additional
> > > data. I find it extremely useful for browsing photos without having to
> > > open edit mode, but the fact that I had to sunk deep into the manual to
> > > find it tells me it's quite undiscoverable.
> > 
> > While the keyboard shortcuts may have been difficult to find in the User
> > Guide I found them quite easy in the on-line help.  So I think the
> > information is there for anyone who goes looking for it and help would
> > be an obvious place to look - hardly undiscoverable.  If users can't be
> > bothered to RTFM then that's there own look out.
> > 
> > After all to be consistent not just the 'v' key would have to be listed.
> > All the other short key cuts and the other controls too, like
> > Ctrl-Wheelmouse back and for to enlarge/shrink the thumbnails. This is
> > going to make the tooltip quite large and likely to obscure some of the
> > thumbnail images.  As we are in browser surely those are the very things
> > we are most interested in?
>
> Maybe the implementation I suggested was a bit overkill. What about
> making it less obstrusive, then? Show a tooltip after keeping the
> cursor still over a picture for a second -or whatever the standard
> time for tooltips is across the desktop- and have it disappear as soon
> as you move out of that picture. Would that be acceptable?

No.  As I said that to be consistent you'd have to show all the keyboard
shortcuts available, that could be a lot of text and it is quite
possible that it would cover up the very thumbnail that the user was
looking at.

Tooltips should be small and unobtrusive.  The tips that pop up on when
you hover the mouse over the toolbar buttons are a perfect example.  If
your suggested image tip said "Press 'v' to see a large version" then
you going to get some users saying "Why doesn't it tell me that the
spacebar can be used to select an image?"  Others will say "Well what
about the '[' & ']' keys for rotating the image?"

Tooltips where not designed to show large amounts of text and therefore
should not be used for that purpose.  They should be short and pithy.

Another good "discoverable" reason for not doing as you should suggest
is that other applications don't use tooptips this way.  One of the
biggest things that makes applications discoverable is that they all
uses the same keys to do similar tasks.  Think how difficult it would be
if every application used a different keyboard mapping for
cut/copy/paste.

I'm not trying to be a put-down artist here, sorry if I come across that
way.  But good GUI design is very, very difficult to get right and just
to make matters worse it is a very subjective topic as well.

> As for the discoverability, I don't even know where the on-line help
> is.

Well maybe on-line was not the clearest term.  I've used the term since
the days when sitting in from of a computer screen was called being
on-line so for me on-line includes the help text in the menu bar at the
top of the screen.

	Help -> Contents    (or F1)

Then look for the section labelled "Shortcuts".

> In my humble opinion such a basic -and helpful- feature should be
> discoverable at first sight.

I see your point, I really do, but have you considered other users?
What about a feature that you don't find helpful but someone else does?
Should you be informed of a feature that you will never use all the
time.  Microsoft got slammed for the "Clippy" helper, although some
people apparently liked it.

Advanced users, and those that use F-Spot a lot, will soon learn the
short cuts.  Should these uses be bugged with helpful popups designed
just for the newbie?  I will argue not because not only do I (as and
advanced computer user) find such things bothersome, but newbies often
progress to advanced users and then find those features bothersome too.

I think one must always weigh up the pros and cons of an idea.  Your
idea would certainly improve the discoverablity of the application but
would it do so at the expense of usability?  I say it would, because the
purpose of the browser display is look at thumbnails of your photos and
have a popup appear over photos unbidden is a distractions.

Steve