Re: User interface suggestions

[Calum Benson <calum benson ireland sun com>]

"Blad, John Erling" wrote:

> The thing is, the menu bar is something you use when you can't find the
> action (or whatever) anywhere else.

Well, that's perhaps a rather simplistic view... people do sometimes use
menu items even if the command has a toolbar button or a keyboard
shortcut.  I know I certainly do!  I don't think there's any one reason
why this is; the main ones for me are (a) using a command so
infrequently that it's not worth learning its toolbar icon/keyboard
shortcut, and (b) inconsistency between the shortcuts/icons for the same
command in different apps-- e.g. "deslect all" has a different shortcut
in at least three different paint apps that I use, so I just use the
menu instead to be sure.

Objectively, menus quite ofen turn out to be quicker to use than
keyboard shortcuts anyway, even though subjectively, keyboard die-hards
*think* they're doing the tasks quicker.  People who've cottoned on to
this are more likely to use menus as a first resort rather than a last
one, too.

Incidentally, if you're interested, Bruce Tognazzini has a few articles
about the mouse v. keyboard debate (and why the mouse usually wins) at:

http://www.asktog.com/readerMail/1999-12ReaderMail.html
http://www.asktog.com/TOI/toi06KeyboardVMouse1.html
http://www.asktog.com/TOI/toi22KeyboardVMouse2.html
http://www.asktog.com/SunWorldColumns/S02KeyboardVMouse3.html

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson ireland sun com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems