Edges of the screen (Panel suggestion)

[mawarkus t-online de (Matthias Warkus)]

In the talkback to my editorial on LinuxToday, someone told me of
www.asktog.com, a site about user interface design. There, I found
this:

] Fitts's Law
] 
] The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size
] of the target. 
] 
] While at first glance, this law might seem patently obvious, it is one
] of the most ignored principles in design. Fitts's law dictates the
] Macintosh pull-down menu acquisition should be approximately five
] times faster than Windows menu acquistion, and this is proven out.
] Fitt's law dictates that the windows task bar will constantly and
] unnecessarily get in people's way, and this is proven out. Fitt's law
] indicates that the most quickly accessed targets on any computer
] display are the four corners of the screen, because of their pinning
] action, and yet they seem to be avoided at all costs by designers.
] 
] Use large objects for important functions (Big buttons are faster).
] 
] Use the pinning actions of the sides, bottom, top, and corners of your
] display: A single-row toolbar with tool icons that "bleed" into the
] edges of the display will be many times faster than a double row of
] icons with a carefully-applied one-pixel non-clickable edge along the
] side of the display.

I read this and then I tried how Gnome handles this. Surprisingly,
this is an exact description of the Gnome panel. The launchers are not
flush with the edge of the panel, so you can't click a launcher by
simply shoving your mouse pointer against the edge of your screen.

 From this point of view, the Gnome panel looks somewhat stupid. It
could be almost the right thing, but it isn't.

Maybe someone could patch the panel to handle clicks on the edge of
the screen, just to try out whether it increases efficiency? 

mawa
-- 
A world of passion, of partners dumped frequently, of music, dance and
sex, of money spent mainly for clothes and alcohol - and a superficial
world of women treated as objects and men hurt badly; empty and
desperate; making some become anorexic and others take drugs.