Re: Justification for the button order change - the long version

[Gerald Henriksen <ghenriks rogers com>]

On 27 Feb 2002 17:49:16 -0800, you wrote:

>Hey, wait a minute, won't you be using some GTK/GNOME apps, so your
>desktop will still be inconsistent *wink*. Seriously though, very nice

Given that those Gnome apps don't follow the new guidelines, no.

And if they do get updated then I will evaluate alternatives at that
time and then decide whether to risk continueing with a backwards
button arrangement or not.

>So my biggest concern is "external to GNOME" interactions, such as with
>KDE or Windows users. I think context here is more than sufficient for
>there not to be a problem though, since we use a different phrasing for

People moving from a Unix workstation to a PC (or the reverse) usually
have problems with the different keyboard layouts despite that fact
that the context change is quite different, so I would argue that it
will indeed be a problem.

Another example, using debit cards to pay for purchases has become
very popular.  In my area most of the debit card swipe machines put a
picture of the card on the side of the slot where the magnetic strip
should face.  But 2 store chains used a different machine (different
shape and colour) that reversed that standard.  Despite knowing that
those machines were "backwards" and that hence I had to reverse things
when faced with those machines in those 2 stores I always swiped the
card the "standard" (ie more common) way and had to redo it when I
realized my mistake.

>But I don't think most dialogues will be an issue. Even in the above
>case people pick up on context pretty darn fast. Most people will
>probably make this mistake no more than a few times.

And what gets "accidentally" deleted those few times?  Or accidentally
overwritten?

>GNOME 2 settings dialog:
>http://beauty.stanford.edu/gnome2-mouse.png

I find this example interesting because to me it demonstrates
extremely bad UI design.  There is no way to abort any changes you
have made (ie to return your system back to its same status before you
starting playing with the settings).

>That's quite enough about why I believe its not problematic to be
>different in this area. So why is the GNOME2 button ordering better?

The fact that it may be better is (unfortunately) not really relevant
(and maybe if Apple wasn't so quick with their lawyers regarding look
and feel this wouldn't even be an issue, which also brings up the fact
that as Gnome2 appears to look extremely similar to the Mac will Apple
also send its lawyers after Gnome?)

When you are on a platform (Linux/Solaris) where everyone else does
things one way you are asking for trouble when you decide to do things
the opposite way. 

Though I guess it will make some people happy as it will make a
Mono/.Net addition to Gnome unworkable given that any .Net apps will
be following the MS style.

(as an aside, I find it ironic that just when Richard Stallman calls
for more consistency between Gnome and KDE it turns out that Gnome is
going to go and move the two even further apart).

>The argument basically is that with left-right, top-bottom readers, your
>eye is left resting on the lower right corner of a window when you are
>done reading text. That makes the lower right corner the first thing you
>read when you are done with a block of text. Thus it is the most quickly

Counterexample.  I briefly went into Gnome2 after reading this and
ended up (without realizing it) taking a closer look at the UI.  When
I logged out of Gnome2 up popped a dialog box asking me what I wanted
to do, and it presented a list of 3 items (all short tiny little words
with lots of empty space to the right).  Having finished reading the
text my eyes ended up in the lower left simply because the right half
of the dialog box was an empty waste land.  In other words, I had to
go and search out for the OK button.