RE: Panel UI - startmenu productivity thoughts

[Aeneas <dominik schnitzer at>]

On 01 Sep 2001 15:49:41 +0200, Jörg Rathlev wrote:
> > 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.

Hi,

I see -- the habit of starting a certain app directly this way is not
desired - if the started application changes the user would make a
mistake and launch the wrong application.

Could this behavoir be avoided if it's clear and obvious for the user,
what application is quick launched by a click or even double-click on
the Foldername?
For exdample by putting an icon of the quicklaunched app next to the
Foldername -- this wouldn't be the clean and easy way.. and I dont like
it either :) just an idea. 

> 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?

Regarding this point, it would be reasonable to include just the
applications launched from the startmenu itself in the 'counting' or
'statistics'.

The difficulty, you and Liam pointed out, of habitual clicks to
quickstart an application is the only problem I see, cause:
 - Startmenu order and placement is not touched
 - It is fully optional to use it or to do as usual

Another point I fully agree with you -- this wouldn't be an intuitive
feature, a Gnewbie would immediately use -- you would have to learn it,
like you learned e.g. the non obvious right-clicking possiblity in the
startmenu.

> 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.

I didn't read Raskin's book - so, if I understood right, basically
having the say "Internet" folder change it's function (say one time
"Evolution" to another time "Mozilla") is not the way to go?
You could make it more consistent and understandable to the user, if
just the most recently launched application is highlighted.

So it is clear for the user: "I started this application from the start
menu, so it is highlighted next time."

> 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.


Hmmm now, thinking about the lines you just wrote me - A way to support
habbit and include this feature is making the quicklauncher
customisizable:
 - The quicklauncher is placed by the user (e.g. via the rightclick
popup in the startmenu)
 - if a quicklauncher is placed, the mechanism is activated

Needs some more thoughts, what do you think?

best,
domi.