Re: [Usability]GNOME-SEARCH-TOOL

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

On Thu, 2002-08-15 at 10:57, Reinout van Schouwen wrote:

> On Thu, 15 Aug 2002, Chris Chabot wrote:
> 
> > Ps, when you call it additional constraints, it looks a little bit weird
> > that there is a 'delete' button .. it feels more proper to 'remove a
> > constraint' then to 'delete a constaint'. But that might just be my
> > europian perspective on things ;-)
> 
> Furthermore a Delete button might give the impression that found files
> will be deleted.

I agree, 'delete' doesn't look quite right here.  Maybe it's more
obvious what it means when you have multiple constraints (and therefore
multiple delete buttons), but it's a bit ambiguous when there's only
one.

> Some more observations:
> 
> * Does the fact that the file sizes are right aligned also mean the Size
> table heading should be right aligned?

Good question, we don't have any guidelines on this at present.  The
answer is almost certainly "no", all the headings should probably have
the same alignment; but whether that alignment should be left or centred
when there is a mixture of column alignments I don't know.  I'd be
inclined to centre all the headings myself, but centering things is a
bit of a cardinal sin in many visual designers' eyes so take my opinion
with a pinch of salt :)

Some other observations:

"File is named": just for the record, Windoze uses "All or part of
filename:" here, which is longer but at least makes it clear that it
won't only report exact matches.

"Start in folder": maybe "Look in folder" or "Search in folder" would
make it more obvious to a newcomer what this meant?

"Add search constraint": I assume the plan here is that a constraint
will be added as soon as you select from the option menu?  This violates
a HIG guideline: "do not initiate an action when the user selects an
item on an option menu".  There should probably be an explicit "Add"
button you have to press.

The frame around the Search Results list isn't necessary, suggest
removing it and just leaving the label.

"Save As" should be "Save As...".

Is there going to be a right-click menu for the search results table? 
What's going to be on it?  Apart from the obvious "open", the most
useful things that spring to mind would be "Copy" (and possibly "Cut"),
"Delete" and "Open Enclosing Folder".

More generally, there are a lot of controls that could be lined-up with
each other here that currently aren't, which makes the dialog look more
complex than it really is, but I guess that can wait until when we've
decided what controls we actually want in there :)

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson ireland sun com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems