RE: [Nautilus-list] Nautilus user testing at MIT

[Nicolas Mailhot <Nicolas Mailhot email enst fr>]

Le sam, 06 jan 2001 01:43:47, Gerry Chu a écrit :
> > cursor over a window means:
> > 	- the window is listening to me
> > 	- the cursor tells me about that window
> >
> >
> > Mind you, I wouldn't want to use the cursor for every
> possible
> > interesting app state, just to tell the difference
> between "I'm ready
> > and waiting for input" vs. "Hold on, I'll be with you
> shortly".
> 
> I would suspect that a lot of people use large maximized
> windows instead of
> the more efficient restored windows.  If that is the case,
> I have a hunch
> that a wait cursor over a window would be generalized to
> mean to the user
> that the entire computer is unresponsive and "thinking",
> since the window
> takes up 99% of the screen area.  And I'm not sure if
> people get the idea
> that one app can be "thinking" while another is
> responsive, they would
> probably think that the whole computer is thinking.

Yes, the whole cursor-form state-indicator system can only
be confusing IMHO. Not a lot of the users that need this
would be able to correctly correlate the cursor form with
one window.

> Personally, I would go with the titlebar approach.  The
> taskbar way would
> not take up any more space, though, it would just use the
> space reserved for
> the icon, probably.  The downside of the taskbar way is
> that it is difficult
> to correlate windows with taskbar items.

However it might be necessary for minimized windows (and
since the title is already repeated in the title bar and the
task bar, why not another indicator ?). In fact, is such a
mechanism could be put into place, I'd want it to also show
up in the WM window list.

> To put things into perspective, there are very few
> programs that are
> inresponsive to user input for noticible periods of time
> that do not already
> have other means of indicating state, eg, you can see some
> programs build
> their ui on startup, at that time, the program is
> obviously not ready for use.

Well, if it were sufficient the whole discussion on cursor
forms would not restart every few months. And anyway, I much
prefer a generic feedback mechanism than let every app
devise its own way of doing it. Let guis stay consistent.

-- 
Nicolas