Re: Menus

[JR Tipton <nails maybe net>]

On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Khimenko Victor wrote:
> > [stuff about menu/toolbar customization, that few users do it]
> But why ? I'm pretty sure that this is since there are no easy way to spread
> your customization! Why waste huge amount of time to fine-tune all menus and
> toolbars if you'll be unable to use this layout next year in next version of
[snip]

Good points in this message, but I think a response is warranted:

I agree to a large degree with what you are saying, but think for a moment
of the users that you know of who use regular applications (by this I
intend to mean non-programmer applications).  Now think of how many
customize them.  Now think of how many would customize them even if they
could without any negative ramifications.

It's a weird thing to us programmer/power-user types, I think.  Think of
it like this: not many car owners customize their cars beyond the initial
purchase point.  Why?  Because they are not car-junkies.  I don't
customize vehicles I'm in because it doesn't make any real difference to
me: the years of development (whether it was trial-and-error or research
or whateverelse) that went into the layout of the car works just about
fine for me.  I can get used to it.  I *do* get used to it.

Customizability is a nice point in many respects, but it is often
important to consider that many (if not a majority of) users aren't
interested in customizing their application.  I never customized Word
because it worked just fine for me: the default layout was pretty well
done, as far as I could tell.

Consider this as a point: perhaps only special purpose applications (for
example, IDEs) should ever have to be modified.  If you take that into
account when designing your user interface, the importance of
customizability is reduced (no matter how easy it is to customize).

(Please don't interpret this as a "customizability is evil" message, but
rather as a "customizability is not the be-all and end-all of UI"
warning.)

William R. Tipton
nails@maybe.net