RE: Panel UI - startmenu productivity thoughts

[Jörg Rathlev <joerg jrsoftware de>]

> So -- if a user moves the mouse in the startmenu over say the
> "Internet" folder, the Internet Folder contents opens and in addition
> to now, the most recently/often started application is automatically
> selected or highlighted too.

I see two problems with this approach. The first is that, as Adam
already pointed out, users might get into a habit of clicking a submenu
to start a certain app inside that menu, but once they selected a
different app from that folder, their habitual behavior will not work
any more.

I think it is more important to support habitual behavior than to change
the environment, more on this below.

Another point is that it's difficult to decide what the last opened
application is. If I have opened my mail software from the internet
menu, than opened an HTML document from my file manager, then what is my
last started internet application? Is it my mail software, or my
internet browser?


Coming back to my point about habitual behavior, I think you should read
Jef Raskin's book Humane Interface, if you haven't already. He makes
some very good points about why habitual behavior is so important.

Features that make a user interface modal (i.e. it behaves different,
depending on the current mode) are almost always a bad idea. If the user
doesn't want to make any mistakes, a modal interface forces him to check
for the correct setting of the mode. That might mean less mouse
movement, but it also means more things to keep in mind for the user.

Habitual behavior consists not only of knowing where things are, it also
consists of, for example, movements. This is also why I do not like
Liam's suggestion, even though it does not change the order of menu
items, it does change their position. It makes it impossible to get used
to things like "Emacs is about half way down in my tools submenu".

I remember that I have really hated it when I installed another
application on Windows and the start menu would suddenly appear above
the "Programs" item, not below! Even though the order of items was still
the same, my movements were completely rerversed. What used to be "all
the way down" was now "directly right to the mouse pointer", and what
used to be there was now "all the way up".

Touch typing is another good example of habitual movements.


Also note that rearranging or auto-selecting menu items will help the
user only if there is really one specific application that he selects
from that menu very often. When there are two applications, the thing
will already be broken, because the current mode becomes completely
unpredictable.

But if there is only one application that the user uses often, why not
give the user the option to move it closer to the submenu item?

If your answer is "because he's more likely to keep it where it is",
then you might want to ask yourself *why* the user does that. Maybe he
actually likes starting his application the same way every time, even if
that means a little more mouse movement?

But wait, the user is not a computer expert? Oh, then he's probably just
too stupid. Nevermind, clueless user, the helpful GNOME paperclip has
found that you're about to launch your browser because you pointed at
"Internet", and will do that for you!


Jörg