Re: [Usability]Re: An alternative proposal for instant-apply vs. non-instant-apply

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs noisehavoc org>]

On 09Sep2001 01:02PM (+0100), colin z robertson wrote:
> 
> Maciej's suggestion being that the dialog should have different
> buttons depending on how changes are applied, yes? I don't think this
> is adequate. People don't read those buttons until they wish to apply
> the changes (and they shouldn't have to), by which time it's too late.
> It needs to be more immediately obvious than that.

If the difference ends up being 0 buttons vs some number more than 0,
it will be very immediately obvious, don't you think?

> There will always be performance issues. The more our machine power
> increases the more we try to do with it. My BBC Model B (ah,
> nostalgia...) booted to a usable state in less than a second. It
> loaded programs at roughly the same speed as they load today. (From
> disk, at least. From tape it was another story.)
> 

There isn't a fundamental technical reason why something like
"changing themes" should be slow. MacOS X can swap between "aqua" and
"graphite" (the only two themes available, but there's an actual theme
engine underneat) pratcially instantly.

> If both can co-exist well together we don't need to push either style.
> I think the guidelines should read "you may use either style, provided
> you follow the guidelines appropriate for the style you are using". If
> at some point down the road we all agree that these instant apply
> dialogs are the greatest thing since sliced bread then we can be more
> forcefully in favour of them.

If we think one style is better in most situations, we should
recommend it's use unless there are reasons not to use it.


> I'm perfectly well aware that instant-apply is a behavioural thing.
> Please, give me some credit. What I'm interested in is seeing if there
> are any visual cues that the settings will be applied instantly. I
> just have little desire to download a 10Mb program which I quite
> dislike and which I know I'll delete immediately afterwards because
> I'm permanently low on disk space.

Since you say you dislike it, does that mean you've tried it before?
It's always had an instant-apply prefs dialog, so hopefully you'll
have a vague memory of what it's like.

There's actually not much visual cue that the dialog is
instant-apply. There's one button at the bottom and it's labelled
"OK". The only hint is the lack of a "Cancel" button. I don't recall
this causing any problems in user testing, but I'm not sure off-hand
if we did any tests which required changing preferences.

 - Maciej