Re: [Usability]Re: Actions menu (was 'Capplets' and 'background/font capplets'))

[Sinzui Kobalt <sinzui cox rr com>]

On Sun, 2002-04-14 at 17:30, Dave Bordoley wrote:
> Just to play devils advocate, what the hell is the "gnome" menu. Seems
> very undescriptive of the actual contents of the current actions drop
> down menu. Also we already use gnome menu to describe the foot menu 
> used in a "windows" like panel layout. Actions is very descriptive of 
> the actual contents of this menu. This menu contains things that do 
> stuff (eg. search, logout, lock display) aka actions the user can do.

> > > Maybe we could have a "Gnome menu" akin to the "Apple menu" and 
> > > then an applications menu ?
> > 
> > This would be quite like OS X (the Apple menu doing mainly 
> > system/scripting stuff), but without the lamosity of not having a 
> > program-launching menu. Sweet.

I agree.  I recall the MIT usability study demonstrated 'gnome' and a
'foot' icon didn't mean anything to the average user.  I think
'Computer' is correct, maybe 'system'.  I also think this menu should
contain hardware tools link Ximian Setup-Tools, or the 'System Settings'
from nautilus  I hate to introduce a complicated menu structure, but I
think personal preferences and system configuration should be available
under one menus (with sub-menus if needed) as the user's permissions
allow. I think it would be good to clearly distinguish between
applications (what the user does) from preferences (how the user does
it).

Broadly speaking, another approach might be to apply "who, what, where,
when, why, and how" to menus.  "Who", the user, might simply be the
user's name as the menu title, and it contains the preferences and
system-settings that can be personalized. "What" might be the
applications that the user has configured to use. "Why" is the
sessions/tasks that the user manages on different desktops/workspaces as
projects. "How" is the help menu. "Where" is difficult to conceive in a
desktop metaphor, but we are working with share volumes and across the
Net to access resources and it might prove helpful to acknowledge that
in the first tier of menus.  "When" is beyond me, but it might be
important to some people.
 
-- 

__S i n z u i___________________________________
sinzui cox rr com
Guilty of stealing everything I am.