Re: PATCH for some random stuff.

[Bruce Robert Pocock <brpocock 10east com>]

On Wed, 2002-06-26 at 10:06, Calum Benson wrote:
> Josh Steiner wrote:
> > 
> > i think there is some validity to having one off tips, maybe the answere
> > is to a "tip" class popup which looks different than alerts and
> > such.  then there would only need to be one desktop or application wide
> > setting to reenable tips.
> 
> Paperclip! paperclip :)

OK, agreed, paperclip and alert wanting user input are bad; but what
about a "tool tip?" This is the Win2K solution ... a "speech balloon"
appears, and hangs around for ~5s or until you click on it. Then, it
never recurs (until you log on to a new workstation...)

EG: Win2K displays "Click Start to find programs" or similar on a speech
balloon pointing to Start at first login; also has similar popups
notifying you of automatic changes to workspace (e.g. "I've hidden all
your programs from you; if you want to find them, click >>" on the Start
Menu/Programs) and the like.

My concern would be that users will be frustrated by being (apparently)
unable to lay out icons manually. Believe it or not, I support a number
of users who simply refuse to consider reading through the *menus*
before calling tech support - and I am not alone ...

> Ellen Isaacs has a section all about "do you really mean it/don't show
> me this again" popups in her book "Designing From Both Sides of the
> Screen"... it makes the case that they're usually a cop-out.  As she
> says, "Imagine if every time you used the backspace key, you were asked
> 'Do you really want to remove that character?'"  :)  The trick is to
> make sure that any potential data loss is minimal (and preferably
> recoverable), e.g. with a good Undo command.