Re: [Usability]application crititque

[Reinout van Schouwen <reinout cs vu nl>]

Hello Luciano,

On 6 May 2002, Luciano Chavez wrote:

> The fields are placed in pages sequentially and new pages are appended
> as more fields show up. I wasn't sure what to title the tabs due to this
> simplistic approach to populating the notebook. Ideas?

Logically group functionality together; and name the tab based on the
categorization you used to group the functions. Please see the HIG for
further advice on the use of tabs.

> Originally, they were checkboxes but under some GTK themes it was
> sometimes difficult to distinguish whether the field was checked or not
> if the widget was made insensitive. Some of our users thought it stood
> out better to see two radio buttons with Yes and No labels.

If that is the case then the GTK theme should be improved. You should not
have to fit your program to make it usable under every theme imaginable.

> The * precedes the field title. The screenshot shows two fields with it.
> Color would be good but aren't there accessibility issues with using
> certain colors? In other words, is red appropriate for color-blind
> folks?

That's why I said 'as well' and not 'instead'.

> Yes, it does have an immediate effect. Not sure what the suggestion of

Star/OpenOffice does something like this as well with their 'print to
file' dialog. For a comparison, you could take a look at
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=1918

> an 'Advanced" button is supposed to do. Possibly, the checkbox label

I meant a 'disclosure triangle' as discussed in
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2001-December/msg00202.html

> This was added due to user feedback. They like being able to click on
> "Commit" periodically.

Then shouldn't it be a button on the window itself instead of wasting
space on a toolbar?

> Thank you for your valued comments Mr. van Schouwen.

Reinout, please. Glad I could be of help.

regards,

-- 

Reinout van Schouwen			Artificial Intelligence student
email: reinout cs vu nl			mobile phone: +31-6-44360778
GPG public key http://www.cs.vu.nl/~reinout/reinout.asc