Re: User interface suggestions

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

William Kendrick wrote:

> > I will tell him/her: "that item is very used by you, so it's now in bold
> > face to find it more quick with your eyes" :).
>
> I'm beginning to wonder what the point is.  If I use it a lot, I KNOW
> where it is.  Why make the screen look less consistent just because
> I clicked something a lot? :)

I think the point was to provide hints to the menu items that you use 
the most, so that you can easily find them the next time you use them.

Think of it this way: You may know and be used to that menu item "XYZ" 
that you use often is the fourth from the bottom in that particular 
menu, so you might ask why it has to be further indicated too (boldfaced 
for example). But this hint is so that you _won't_ have to count the 
menu items from the bottom and up to find what you're looking for.
You remember the ordering of the menu items, not the exact pixel 
positions, so the "most used" hint is there to give you further 
assistance to easily find what you want without having to rely on only 
the ordering, and without the stupid tricks of reordering the menu items 
based on the most used or hiding the less used.

And as for consistency, I'd rather trade some consistency for useful 
usability hints. And if it can be turned off (which it definately should 
be) I don't think it will be a problem for experienced users who can 
find this setting and turn it off.


> > I think that having a way to highlight the most used items in the screen
> > is a good interface improvement for the all users in general... but if
> > someone doesn't like it, it's always possible to go to the control center
> > and disable it...
>
> I'd like to see it off by default. ;)

As for all usability improvements, I think they should be turned on by 
default, else the people who need them the most might not ever find them 
or know about them. Those who find this behavior annoying can always 
turn it off, because those people probably know where to find this setting.


Christian