Re: folks: "the foot" is _not_ important right now!

[Samuel Solon <ssolon usa net>]

At 11:41 AM 10/31/98 +0000, you wrote:
>Samuel Solon wrote:
>
>> I'm not so much in favor of following a particular other GUI but there
>> seems to have been a convergence in applications that the first
>> "application" menu is the "File" menu which contains the way of ending the
>> application and the "filing" operations (whether actual disk files are used
>> or not).
>
>the whole reason why i even responded to this gentleman's enthusiasm
>about the foot menu was so we could answer, for once and because of the
>necessity, whether it is better to pursue better design or to pursue
>compatibility with other gui's. i'd again like to reiterate that
>_before_ we start compiling our feature lists or codeless proposals, we
>need to have foundations such as this laid down in stone. let's not even
>question the gnome menu yet; let's take care of those first items first.
>

It was my understanding that gnome was designed to be evolutionary, not
revolutionary. To produce a free (in the Open Source definition) version of
a straightforward desktop.

I have heard this stated by people on the mailing list and wish I could
find a stronger statement of it than the following, from the Gnome
Manifesto (http://www.gnome.org/about/manifesto.html):

    "It seeks to impose only that order necessary for consistency."

This doesn't say consistency with what.

I would love to see a revolutionary system based on interesting new
techniques but gnome isn't it.

>in fact, maybe we ought to impose upon ourselves as a mailing list that
>if we have a pet feature we'd like to debate, we should not mention it
>yet but study it, research it, and test it while we try to work on the
>underlying psychological principles first. this way we can avoid turning
>menus into flamewars while we actually find out what is _really_ the
>best course of action.
>
>> There are so few standards on Unix that to abandon such a widely followed
>> practice should only be done if there is a significant advantage.
>
>careful who you're calling a "standard" there, bub! :) i just popped
>open emacs and saw the first menu labeled "buffers" and it did _not_
>have "quit" at the bottom. :) nor did moonlight creator, vi, or
>electriceyes. the point is, i think we have a little more lattitude than
>you'd like to attribute to us. keep an open mind, and research,
>research, research.
>

Notice I referred to the "File" menu as a "widely followed practice". In
previous discussions of the "File" menu I brought up emacs and only left it
out this time for brevity. I always found the "buffers" menu distracting
and annoying as the first menu and it is the reason that I use xemacs.

>> I've
>> never heard any really good arguments made in favor of the "foot" menu
>> other than it being "uniquely gnome" or "logical".
>
>as if "logical" wasn't a good enough reason. :) c'mon, let's not get
>tied up in this. let's get the foundation principles worked out, and i
>have a feeling these simple questions of organization will take care of
>themselves when we have the "hows" and "whys" laid down.
>
>> Another consideration is that people will continue to use non-gnome
>> software along with gnome (for example xemacs) and most of it follows the
>> "File" menu practice. Again, gnome should be moving towards unifying
>> application interfaces not breaking them by being different for the sake of
>> being different.
>
>if we could please avoid inflammatory remarks like "different for the
>sake of being different" which belittles rather than taking actual
>presented evidence (for or against difference) into account, i feel we
>could be more productive. if we could address the question of _goals_
>(better design or compatibility?) i'm sure the "little issues" like
>these will work themselves out in the end. thank you.
>

I had no intention of being "inflammatory". I was rather addressing the
view that it would make a statement. Views such as:

"IMHO, it would be the kind of nifty GUI feature that attracts
people to an environment"

and 

"What about the requirement that it just plain look cool? =)"


>> I would never argue that the menubar model that applications have been
>> using for so many years is optimal but it has becoming ingrained in
>> people's minds. Making minor changes in it is disruptive and I doubt it
>> will really improve usability significantly.
>
>can you please test this for us? this seems to have been the most hotly
>contended argument and i'm sure we're all equally tired of conjecturing
>and want to see some actual results. fwiw, the results i've seen on this
>list have been equally divided, although until patrick expressed his
>enthusiasm about the foot, the only research we had to go on was bowie
>poag, who had drawn up his own mockups, showed his so (who got mad, he
>said), and then subsequently demonstrated that he lacked any
>understanding of the subject we were debating at the time. :) i believe
>it was tom vogt who showed the foot menu to his nephew (or someone;
>pardon if i'm recalling incorrectly... the actual discussion is archived
>on the gnome website for anyone who cares enough about proper
>attribution) and his nephew said "oh cool" or something like that.
>hardly scientific; we need some real research which shows whether good
>design is more or less important than doing what everyone else does.
>-- 
> ______(sungod)_____________________________________


Please don't trivialize human factors testing. It is a difficult and
complex subject which I'm not an expert in. Given the malleability of
humans it can be a very frustrating exercise since people can adapt to
almost any situation -- some more rapidly than others (and some not at
all). At least that has been my experience with hf testing some of which,
General Magic's work on its Magic Cap OS for example, was quite elaborate.

If it is a given that gnome is "evolutionary" then we should be looking at
trends in user interface design and follow them. Although I don't have the
documents available anymore I believe a lot of the current UI is based on
IBM's CUA work of many years ago. It has been holding up very well.

I guess it all boils down to what the goals of gnome are. I don't think it
is to advance the "state of the art" in UI design although I would
certainly like to see someone do that.