Re: Is keynav to unavailable menu items a bug?

[earl johnson <Earl Johnson Sun COM>]

Input from 2 Interaction Designers we've worked with over the 
years. Their basic take - make the interaction like Windows 
because that's where our users are coming from and that's what 
they expect.

Earl

-------- Original Message --------


Hey Earl,

I'm also Cc:ing the xDesign folks who work on Desktop (and, 
therefore,
mainly GNOME-based or JDS-focused stuff).

I'd go with my usual answer -- have it work like Windows. There 
are pros
and cons on both sides of this one (I'd say). All else being 
equal, it
should act like people expect. And, 90% of people (with whatever
abilities they may have) are likely to be coming from Windows to
Linux/GNOME/JDS/Solaris/etc.

Mike

<snip>

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [Fwd: Is keynav to unavailable menu items a bug?]
Date: 	Mon, 18 Oct 2004 18:05:53 -0700
From: 	Eric Bergman <Eric Bergman Sun COM>
To: 	Earl Johnson Sun COM
CC: 	Michael Albers Sun COM, Eric Bergman <Eric Bergman Sun COM>, 
Peter
Korn <Peter Korn Sun COM>, Eric Bergman <Eric Bergman Sun COM>
References: 	<417461F3 8090400 sun com>



I'll argue that inactive menu items should be traversable for at 
least 3
different reasons:

1) Users have got to be enabled to traverse menu items for 
accessibility
as described below.  Period.

2) It is odd behavior for the highlight to 'jump' over inactive 
items --
it is visually hard to follow, even for folks without low vision or
other issues.

3) Windows has set a standard here for which I can't see a 
justification
for Java to violate when that is the environment we are usually 
running
in anyway.


Eric