Re: [Usability] Re: Button ordering

[Alan Cox <alan redhat com>]

> "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. 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.

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