[Usability] Re: Button ordering

[Kenny Graunke <kenny whitecape org>]

<quote who="Owen Taylor">

> I've just applied Gregory Merchan's patch in:
> 
>  http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56331
> 
> To make the GTK+ standard dialogs button ordering conform to the gnome
> usability project's dialog proposal.
> 
>  http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/proposals/dialog.html
> 
> This is Mac style with the "action" button at the lower right
> hand corner, as opposed to what we've done in the past - Windows style
> with the default button at the left.

I wasn't aware that this was the Mac style when I supported this proposal. I
knew it was similar, but I thought it was subtly different. Maybe not. At
any rate, I support it because I feel it is better, not because it came from
the Macintosh.

> So, 
> 
>   [ Help ]                 [ Cancel ] [   OK   ]
> Not:
> 
>   [ Help ]                 [   OK   ] [ Cancel ]
> 
> While I'm willing to be told that this is the better ordering (the
> fact that Windows and Mac disagree probably mean that there is no
> "right" ordering), I have two reservations about the change:
> 
>  * Familiarity is important; I'm feeling quite disoriented by
>    the change and other of our users will probably be disoriented
>    too, both existing GNOME users and users coming from Windows.

I was a bit disoriented at first, too - now I've gotten used to it.

>  * With this change we'll have inconsistency in all apps until
>    they are fixed.

As Seth pointed out, we already have a huge amount of inconsistency. This
is probably the most important part of writing it up - just deciding on
*something*, and standardizing that.

I would like to remind people that not everyone comes from a Windows
background, and not everything they do is the best. The same goes for the
Macintosh. I prefer to examine other systems (beyond Windows and the Mac,
even) and look at their strengths and weaknesses to come up with proposals -
blindly copying Windows' seems just as braindead as blindly copying the
Macintosh, to me.

> Anyways, since I'm sure this change is going to cause controversy I
> thought I might as well start the flame war myself to save time ;-)

Hehe. :-)

> Regards,
>                                         Owen

My $0.02...

Kenny