Re: Recently used applications

[Alan Horkan <horkana tcd ie>]

On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, John McCutchan wrote:

> that list. So for them it was a two click process instead of a one click
> scan list (That as a non power user you are unfamiliar with and don't
> care to get familiar with), click.
> A comment I got was "I hate having to search through the menus just to find
> my movie player".

Some users have many applications installed, especialy those of use using
both Gnome and KDE apps (and even some windows apps wiht wine) from the
Gnome Desktop (a seperate KDE menu massively bothers me and ruins all the
effort of putting everything else into sensible menus)

On a given day i might be using the same application or group of
applications over and over again but it may not be a task i do very often
(say designing a website)  and that i would not want to add a
shortcut/launcher to my panel just for that days work

Some users get stuck with the default configuration.
I really liked this feature on the Mac, and i think the Mac is the reason
Windows XP has this feature as much as anything else.

Even if the menus are perfectly organised, they wont necessarily stay that
way.  This is a useful feature.  Forcing users to learn how to use the
system properly for their own good in the long run annoys people in the
short term and it assumes that people actually use computers regularly
enough to learn how to (and actually remember how to*) use them properly.
(i still program the video incorrectly on a fairly regular basis, and
equally so) some people will only use computers as little as they can
possibly get away with and never want to figure things out even if it is
for their own good.  "Forced Education" of user is not a good idea,
frankly it is patronising and condescending.  Put the user in control.

I dont think this can be considered as giving the user an uneccessary
choice or too many choices, so why not give users the choice?
And if it is not in by default how are normal user supposed to know about
it?

Sincerley
Alan Horkan

PS now that the idea of most recently used has come up how about most
frequently used? even though i hate the Micrsoft implementation (hiding
things without asking) i still think it can be a good idea

* We have discoverability/learnability and retention of things learned,
I dont buy any comments that this is bad for usability.