Re: [Usability]<What's this?> button

[Gediminas Paulauskas <menesis delfi lt>]

axel c wrote:
> hi there,
>
> i've been thinking for some time about the idea of a What's this? button
> is some gnome dialogs. I got the idea because i used a windows box a
> couple of days ago and found it a great idea (though poorly exploited in
> the windows case, since the information given is often useless and
> confusing). Little bits of 'educational' information can be included in
> dialogs, widgets, etc if the user needs them.

Instead of "What's this" popup menu, which you need to click to get a 
tooltip displayed (total two clicks), simply display the tooltip for 
entries which may need explanation (no clicks, only hover).

In windows, just yesterday I looked at some configuration dialog and 
tried pressing right mouse button on every control I didn't understand, 
but only some of them had "What's this" help. I found such behavior very 
annoying.

> For example, let's say a user needs to set up a file association in
> nautlilus, then the dialog pops up, there could be a button saying 'tell
> me more about this' which pops a Tooltip giving a little explanation of
> what a MIME type is, and why it needs to be associated with an
> application to be handled. I think this dynamic, minimalistic,
> context-depending 'teaching' would be more appealing to the user than
> browsing through heavy documentation to find something (the user learns
> as he needs it), this reminds me of the educational theories of Rousseau
> et al, 'teaching through pleasure' might be the english translation but
> im not sure though.

Currently nautilus pops up a dialog when you open scripts folder. This 
is annoying, because i need to close the dialog before I can reach files 
I wanted (and I know what they are).

A small (2-3 lines) description of what this dialog is could be added 
with light bulb next to it, as in theme or background preference 
dialogs, and a help button with extensive information.

> Of course, i guess these 'bits' could be toggled off by more advanced
> users.

Of course, it should not be configurable.

> what do you think about this?


--
Gediminas