Re: [Usability] Re: Button ordering

[murrayc t-online de (Murray Cumming)]

On Sat, 2001-11-03 at 01:21, Alan Cox wrote:
> > "Show me the research" or "show me user testing" is a throwaway phrase
> > that is incredibly hard to argue against but isn't really helpful to the
> > situation. We don't *have* the ability to perform the research for most
> > usability choices, and in many many cases the necessary research is not
> > widely published because its done by *companies* with an interest in
> > being the primary ones to gain the benefit from the information.
> 
> So you are guessing ?
> 
> The point is that you are proposing a disruptive change.

Seth has explained that it isn't that disruptive.

> If the best
> argument you have for a disruptive change is that its what was recommended
> by two minor OS's while currently we generally follow what the mass of
> people expect then its not much of an argument.
> 
> If apple did the work, presumably the research is out there, otherwise
> perhaps Apple just guessed too. Or perhaps they picked one because it didnt
> seem to matter much.

I can believe that it's hard to find the experimental data on this.

But I am also quite convinced by the 'read-to-bottom-right' idea, and I
understand Seth's point that this makes it easier to keep the
first-choice button in a consistent place no matter what other buttons
are added.

> 
> Let me take a historical item still relevant today.
> 
> Everyone knows QWERY[Y|Z] keyboards are dumb. Everyone who tried to change
> the world and rewrite it  basically went out of business.
> 
> 
> If you were arguing at the point Gnome was being started I'd be all for it
> based on the limited info you have, but to change something that major and
> to change it to differ from the major desktop OS product and from general
> defaults for older gnome/gtk needs a much much strong argument.
>
> Which side of the road to drive on isnt a big issue. CHanging sides
> afterwards is...
> 
> Alan
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> 
> 
-- 
Murray Cumming
murrayc usa net
www.murrayc.com