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

["Ali Abdin" <aliabdin aucegypt edu>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Ford" <bford talontech com>
To: "Steven Hatfield" <ashari knightswood net>
Cc: "John Sullivan" <sullivan eazel com>; <rebecka eazel com>;
<nautilus-list lists eazel com>
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 5:30 AM
Subject: Re: [Nautilus-list] Nautilus user testing at MIT


> Steven Hatfield wrote:
>
> > > I can't help but gripe about this misuse of the word "intuition". It's
true
> > > that Nautilus does not behave exactly like Windows or Mac in that by
> > > default you view documents in Nautilus and have to take a different
step to
> > > open them in external applications. But this has nothing to do with
> > > "intuition", unless you cheapen "intuition" to mean simply
"expectation
> > > based on using somewhat similar programs in the past". If you follow
that
> > > route, then you start calling everything new "non-intuitive" because
it's
> > > not exactly like its predecessors.
> > >
> > > > The other thing, and this isn't really nautilus, I think,but Gnome
is
> > > > that
> > > > when you try to launch something there is no indication that it is
> > > > launching so we see people launching two, three, 16 instances of an
> > > > application.  They are looking for the hour glass or something.
> >
> > I (as a former Win32 user/developer and a recently converted Linux user)
have
> > to agree with Susan here -- without visual feedback, using
Gnome/Nautilus is
> > annoying. KDE2 gives me visual feedback in that the task bar shows an
entry
> > for the application that is starting with a spinning disc next to it,
and
> > then once the application is fully realized, the spinning disc turns
into the
> > application icon. This is a great first step (for KDE2 users, at least),
but
> > one thing that Linux (ALL window managers/desktop environments) is
missing is
> > that hourglass pointer. Why is it that we can't change the way our
pointer
> > looks? We can change every pixel on the screen, except for the one that
our
> > eyes follow all day?! If you could find a way to change this arrow (and
> > provide the visual feedback that is necessary for users to know that
> > something is happening), you would go a long way toward strengthening
Linux
> > in the eyes of the user base.
> >
> > >
> > > I agree that this is one of GTK/Gnome/Linux/Unix's big problems with
poor
> > > feedback. I hope we can find some way to address it in the future.
> >
> > At least someone agrees with me :-)
> >
> > Have a great day, and Happy New Year!
> > -Steven Hatfield
> >
>
> Try this URL:   http://www.lysator.liu.se/~astrand/projects/xalf/
> It is a trivial matter to change the pointer.

The GNOME project will be using this sometime in the future.