First UI component needing replacement.

[Chris LeDantec <Chris LeDantec netbeans com>]

hey, (i've been lurking and now i'm jumping in)

there seems to be a real misanthropy against the unsophisticated user. first
the comment about adding help as an additional module that needs to be
installed and now continuing to suggest that modes of operation that would
be most helpful to the learning user be buried in an advanced dialog...

think about the typical learning user (try to remember when you were that
user).  first thing a learning user does in front of any application is sit
down to get some work done. that need typically drives the interest in later
making the application do more complex tasks. whatever behavior is shown in
the beginning is what sets up all future expectations; the new user is not
likely to change settings (not until they become a more sophisticated user).
instead, they accept things at face value (um, why most users don't complain
too much about the windows interface. present company excluded, of course
:-)) and either train behavior around that or drop the system in favor of
something easier to learn.

the sophisticated user is going to have some different expectations/desires.
this is also the type of person who knows how to and where to look to change
these settings.  

in that light i think it is better to provide all sensible defaults based on
the needs of the non-sophisticated user but allow those behaviors to be
changed by the sophisticated user. auto-completion is an example: it makes
good sense for the new user (or slower typer) -especially with long file
names -so leaving it as the default behavior is probably a nicer way to
offer a little hand holding. the folks who get their knickers in a twist
over it will be more capable of finding how to turn it off.  

similarly with help (i was really blown away by the comment to make it an
extra step to install help). the last thing some one new to the system is
going to think is that they need to install help separately. help should be
there as a transparent safety net -not a 'oops, you should have thought
ahead that you would need it'. no one really assumes they will need help
-and from a social point of view if help isn't included by default we are
propagating sophisticated user snobbery ('what, you need help to run this?
who are you anyhow?'). it's snickering when the new guy in class asks a
question.  better to let the sophisticated user specify later that the help
package should be deleted.

a general concern i have about opinions expressed here is that no one on
this list is in the middle of a user bell curve.  there is a lot of
discussion around the needs of advanced users, which is great, but is this
really the audience gnome is shooting for?  my feeling is that the ui should
be designed to make the simple/easy case nearly transparent and all other
difficult/advanced tasks as smooth as possible -that trade-offs should lean
the way of helping the new users get up to speed and not at helping the
advanced user along some useful but obscure tasks.  advanced users will
adapt, new users will simply switch to something better suited to them and
not look back.

cL

-----Original Message-----
From: Dylan Griffiths [mailto:Dylan_G@bigfoot.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2000 1:52 AM
To: GNOME GUI list
Subject: Re: First UI component needing replacement.


"Michael T. Babcock" wrote:
> 
> It would confuse them for all of ten seconds -- most people are visually
> acute enough to realise what was going on once they typed "abra" and only
> "abracadabra" remained as a file ... backspacing (over the a) would leave
> them, perhaps, with "abracadabra" followed by "abrasive".
> 
> This is an easy behaviour to switch on and off, and makes file selection
> simple for non-keyboard people (type part of name, double click file).

Alright.  I'm willing to accept that people will like/use this, but I'd also
like it to not be the default for the beginner dialogs.  Once a user starts
to play around with the advanced dialog {configurator, editor} control in
the gnome configuration tool, they could turn this on and experiment with
it.  Perhaps the "teaching" application could show the user how these things
work.

-- 
    www.kuro5hin.org -- technology and culture, from the trenches.

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