[Usability]Re: UI Review Suggestions - Panel

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

On Sun, 2002-11-17 at 22:23, Frank Worsley wrote:

> Why should these things be left-aligned? It looks more visually
> appealing when they are centered. Is this a UI/Usability guideline?

Well no, the HIG doesn't say "thou shalt never center things" :)  But it
does say you should try to minimise the number of alignment points in a
dialog-- generally the more things you have in a window that don't line
up with something else, the harder it becomes to scan.

Also, in this particular case, the application description may be
dynamic over the lifetime of the dialog, so the position of its first
letter can change.  That could be annoying if you're using a screen
magnifier, for example.

So unless there's a good reason to centre something, it's often better
not to.

Cheeri,
Calum.

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

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems