Re: Trying a new toolbar style

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Thu, 2009-07-30 at 10:09 +0000, Reinout van Schouwen wrote:
> hi Shaun,
> 
> Shaun McCance <shaunm <at> gnome.org> writes:
> 
> > There's quite a bit of inconsistency for common toolbar
> > items: New, Open, Save, Back, etc.  Personally, the big
> > reason I don't use text beside icons is that the text
> > on the Back button in Epiphany annoys me.
> 
> But I hope you'll agree that if there's one button on the Epiphany toolbar that
> is suitable for priority text, it is the Back button? 
> Several bugs have been filed in the past saying that the Back button isn't big
> enough; for instance #563599, #169397.
> 
> Just in case you weren't aware, the Epiphany toolbar editor allows you to
> override the Gnome toolbar style default. 

>From the perspective of making it a bigger target, sure.
(I'm very suspicious of the benefits of that, however).

>From the perspective of adding extra information, well,
the Back button is probably about the most obvious and
well-known button on the desktop.

I just think it looks ugly and lopsided.  Appearance
really does make a difference.  So when somebody asks
"Why does this look ugly?", if our response is to be
"Because it aids usability", then we'd better make
sure that's actually true.

FWIW, I've been using icons only for years.  I'm using
text beside icons right now, because I always try to
test our defaults.  But I expect I'll switch back.

(Interesting anecdote that really is not intended to be
any sort of argument either way: I've been surprised by
how often I automatically mouse to Reply to All when I
want to delete a message in Evolution.  I had no idea
that my brain was that conditioned to the positions of
things on the toolbar.)


--
Shaun