Re: [Nautilus-list] Nautilus user testing at MIT

["Blad, John Erling" <john erling blad aftenposten no>]

>I don't think we are disagreeing here, but I'm not quite sure. In the
>version that the users were tested on, they could change the text in a text
>document viewed in Nautilus by typing or deleting, which was a bug because
>no changes could be saved. This has since been corrected so that you can't
>change the text by typing or deleting. Therefore we are "stopping them
>before they try" and not forcing them to do something wrong and then redo
>the operation.

Is it possible to signal that the text is read only before they try to
change
it? Really this is a Pandora's box but usually you can show this by using
a slightly grey background or something similar.

One application I played with (funny thing made in Sweden.. :) used green
text field for editable text. Red for non-editable and yellow.. forgot..
I belive they used 4 or 5 colors. Looked like a mess.

Well, Calum knows more about this!

> I agree that we can't ignore past practice and people's experience. I was
> just trying to point out the trap of using "intuitive" to mean "the same
as
> what was done in the past". When that kind of thinking is embedded, it
makes
> all changes seem bad. For example, dragging disks to the trash to eject
them
> has long been considered a UI design mistake on the Macintosh. But Mac
users
> are used to it, so you could say that other platforms that don't do this
are
> "unintuitive" for Mac users. I think this terminology causes more harm
than
> good.

There are a lot of wacko examples around. Still some ideas are *good*, don't
discard them simply because it got the stamp "Mac" or "Microsoft" or "Sun"
or whatever. People are used to them and want other systems to act somewhat
similar.

In general, it is extremly easy to get in the "I like this" -mode and forget
about the rest of the world. I done that to many times! Especially when you
work in a small group and everyone knows the system. "It is so cool! Gee.."
Last time I got in that "mode" I later figured out I forgot the obvious
soulution. It looked cool but it was unnessesary difficult to use.

Bottom line I gess is that easy to use user interfaces looks boring.


John