Re: [Evolution] Close window when deleting?

[Brian Mury <b mury ieee org>]

On Thu, 2004-02-12 at 10:15 -0500, Jeffrey Stedfast wrote:
> several "designing the perfect ui" documents I've read say that more
> options means bad ui, and that limiting the number of options makes a
> better ui. 

I've read a lot of documents that tell me "the perfect way" to do
things. A lot of them are a waste of perfectly good paper. Some people
spend too much time thinking about these things and not enough time
writing code (I do both, professionally). It may sound great in the
perfect world of the academics writing this stuff, but it often falls
apart in the real world. 

Fewer options might equal a better UI (a point of which I am not
convinced), but it equals a worse program.

Frankly, the arrogance of forcing the user to accommodate the software,
rather than the other way around, because you think they can't handle a
configuration option astounds me. As a software developer, I believe
that if the user cannot figure out how to configure the software, the
problem is not too many options - the problem is that I have not done my
job properly.

My background for saying that: I have written software that sells for
hundreds of thousands of dollars a copy, has extensive and complex
configuration options, is usually configured and operated by users who
have never touched a computer before (and often have to be shown how to
use a mouse), and can cost the customer thousands of dollars daily if
poorly configured.

BTW, configuration options are not the only part of the UI. How the
window behaves is also part of the UI. I normally look at the
configuration window once, but I read and delete emails several hundred
times a day. Which is worse: "cluttering up" the configuration window
with an extra-but-useful option that the user will see once, or pissing
them off hundreds of times daily? Do any of your "perfect UI" documents
discuss that?

> this can be done by choosing more sane defaults 

The problem with this statement is that machines have human users. We
all have different preferences about how we want our machines to behave.
Removing choice from the user to live up to some arbitrary UI ideology
is, IMO, misguided.

> (which by popular opinion we seem to have done)

Not in my opinion, and I could give good reasons why I feel the current
behaviour is not the best choice. I won't, because I don't think it
would be relevant - my argument is not that the behaviour should be
changed, but that the user should have the choice.

But don't worry about me, the worthless user - there are other email
clients. If I wanted to be told how to use my computer, I'd be using
Windows - oh wait, Outlook lets me configure this behaviour. ;-)