Re: [Usability]widget style vs window decoration, (was "cheat to window-manager integration")

[Daniel Borgmann <daniel liebesgedichte net>]

On Sat, 2002-07-27 at 18:08, James Ramsey wrote:
> > "Controls" really
> > isn't more ambiguous than "Widgets". The difference
> > is, that "Controls"
> > is a word well known. If we use it as a simple
> > title, like "Controls" it
> > should be _very_ clear that it is meant as a noun
> > and wouldn't be
> > confused with the other meanings 
> 
> If the menu item is entitled "Controls," then that
> solves the problem of whether "controls" is a noun or
> a verb, but doesn't give a clue as to what the menu
> item does. "Controls" could refer to the appearance of
> the controls, or to details of how the controls work,
> such as whether menus or toolbars are detachable.

But it would be a tab inside an "Appearance" capplet.
You could as well argue then that a "Window Borders" tab inside such a
capplet wouldn't be clear as well which is not true.

Let's see, there are three suggestions so far, right? Those would be:

- "Widgets" as a new term
Advantages: A unique word that would always describe exactly what we
talk about when used. Unambigous. Also already commonly used by hackers
and on project websites (I stumbled about this twice in a row yesterday
when browsing some GNOME Office websites).
Disadvantages: It is an invented word. Well maybe not really but at
least many doesn't seem to know it if it's a reallife word. I even read
an explaination somewhere that told it would be a made up word of
"Windows" and "Gadgets". Translator said they would probably not
translate it so for other languages it would appear even more jargony.

- "Controls"
Advantages: It's a "real" word and people can associate it with
something. It's also pretty commonly used for this kind of things
already. 
Disadvantages: Not clear if noun or verb if it's used together with
another noun. This would have to be avoided. Someone mentioned that
translators might confuse the word with "to control" because they don't
test their translation or don't understand the application. But isn't
this extremely dangerous anyway? If this is common practive, we should
probably try to improve it. 
It also doesn't apply to all kind of widgets (like certain views), so
hackers would probably continue to use the word widgets and we would
have some inconistency here.

- No word for it, just describing it, e.g. with a picture
Advantages: No need to confuse the user with a new word. Should work in
a cleverly designed Appearance dialog.
Disadvantages: Still no common word that can be used to describe widgets
to the user. If it's never used otherwise, this might not be such a big
problem...

Did I miss something? If there aren't other suggestions, I guess we
haveto pick one of them.

 
> > (Control Center,
> > Volume control, etc).
> > AFAIK the word "controls" isn't used for anything
> > else at our desktop so
> > it seems to make sense as an addition to pointer,
> > icons, windows, etc.
> 
> The question, though, isn't whether "controls" is used
> anywhere else in the GUI, but whether "controls"
> conveys the meaning that we want to convey.

When you see "Controls" in an Appearance dialog, what else would you
expect it to be? Now add a picture to it and it can't be any clearer
IMOH.

-Daniel