Re: [Usability] Some Proposals for GNOME 3.0 AND BEYOND

[Uno Engborg <uno webworks se>]

Daniel J. Wilson wrote:

On Thu, 2004-09-23 at 00:33 -0700, Mitch Malcolm wrote:
  

2.)
Gnome Panel to continue at its current default location i.e. right at
the top but now with Clock applet situated at the top extreme left
hand corner, then the Weather report applet next to it, followed by
the Volume Control applet and then perhaps 2 tab spaces before we come
to "Commonly Used/Recommended Apps" i.e. the best GNOME/Gtk/OSS has to
offer e.g. Epiphany, Evolution Email/Groupware Suite, Gaim, XChat-
Gnome, Pan, Gwget2, Beep Media Player, Totem, GThumb, Gedit, GNOME
Terminal, Goats and Force Quit, all of which are logically grouped in
this section of the panel for easy access by the desktop user.
    

This would almost totally destroy the applicability of Fitts' Law to the
GNOME menu.  By virtue of its corner placement, the menu can be easily
targeted because it is nigh impossible to overshoot the corner of the
screen, giving it "infinite depth".

In my experience we use menus within an application more often than we switch between appalication, or start new ones. So, if we should pay attention to Fitts Law, perhaps we should move the menubar from the active application to the panel, like they do in MacOS, or at least have it as an option to do so like in KDE.

Regards
Uno Engborg

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