[Usability]Re: Right Click the same as Ctrl+LeftClick???

[Alan Horkan <horkana tcd ie>]

Answering several questions from the thread here at once, in no particular
or coherent order.

I realise now that i definately should not have posted a vauge question
desktop-devel-list, next time ill try and ask the better questions in
the most appropriate places.
(Not sending this mail to desktop devel list)

On 29 Nov 2002, Curtis C. Hovey wrote:

> Date: 29 Nov 2002 08:51:05 -0500
> From: Curtis C. Hovey <sinzui cox net>
> To: Usability <usability gnome org>, desktop-devel-list gnome org
> Subject: Re: Right Click the same as Ctrl+LeftClick???
>
> > How about click and hold? I'm not a Mac person, but I've seen Macs that
> > do this. And I've seen it on handhelds. It would certianly help the
> > Tablet situation..

This sounds very interesting and if you have and references i would love
to read them (ill google and see if i can find anything myself of
course).

> > It also has the advantage that it clashes with almost nothing else I can
> > think of. I suppose there are clashes with dragging, but that can be
> > fixed the same way the context menus used to be handled.

> No Mac user ever discovered ctrl-click on their own.  My wife refuses to
> use it and my daughter can't.  The click-and-hold used by old Netscape

I think users discover very little on their own, but then i am
dissillusioned by some of the users i have tried to help.
I wonder about discoverability, most people dont know about Insert
& Overwrite share the same key and wonder why characters are being
overwritten with no clue of how to get out of the situation and need to
be told it once.  It is something only the most curious users would
discover by themselves.
It seems to me to fit more with the notion of grabbing something.
If you were to use Click and Hold it would probably need to be turned off
if the mouse was moving much, so that if you were trying to move a file
from one folder to another you would not get an uneccessary context menu.

If you were totally new to computers and all you were told was point and
click if you were a curious person you might look through the menus and
see what was available to be clicked and what options a program has.  You
might also wonder what the left and possibly also the middle buttons were
for but only users curious enough to randomly try out things and wander a
little from the path of rather than follow by rote the few basics steps
they have learnt to get the job done.  Computerphobic users discover a lot
less than you think, not all users are of the "i wonder what will happen
if i do this" variety.

> was nice, but I must have failed usability tests for Apple to ignore it
> when it officially added context menus (in 8.0?).  It is not natural to
> use two devices to get a context menu, the mouse needs to do it on it's
> own.  To add a ctrl-left-click to do what the Mac user does, doesn't
> make sense in itself because the user has to discover what the other two
> or three buttons do anyway; how does the Mac user know to use the left
> mouse?


The thing is that a Mac user never _NEEDS_ to know.

You should be able to do just about anything albeit in a slower and
clunkier manner with only a mouse or only a keyboard.  This situation may
seem contrived but most tests are, and it helps you to understand what it
would be like to try and use a computer if you had some sort of reduced
accesibility.

If a mouse only has one button, then it is pretty hard to get
confused about which one to click.

Context menus are overrated but useful.  In many cases you could get away
without them, but in some cases developers (i am not sure why) put
everything in the context menu (the Gimp).

I guess some of the people making more critical comments have not tried to
work with users who just dont understand computers, and very little desire
to understand them.  I really have been asked what do you mean "double
click"  (quickly click twice in row) and yes i really have had to explain
what do you mean by "left click"  (click using the left mouse button), and
user find notions like coping and pasting a file to be a somewhat odd and
slightly unclear metaphor (although it is perfectly clear in a the context
of wordproccessing).  Many people really do treat their computers as
little more than glorified typewriters.  I dont expect Gnome developers to
be messing about answering the most lame tech. support questions in the
daily jobs but please cut me some slack.
I was just asking, i am learning and i am trying to read up on usability
and computing history so that i can make reference to the hows and whys of
neat little ideas that others have tried but in the meantime please dont
immediately shoot me down if i cannot backup everything i say with an
appropriate reference or case study.

I realise that the Unix legacy would make such a change very difficult,
and Jeff has pointed out that while it might be benficial it would not be
beneficial enough.  I cannot argue with that.

I would point out to you however that now most programs have Copy and
Paste in the program menus and depending on the terminal app you use you
no longer _need_ the middle mouse button, which is a pretty massive help
for those who were accustomed to the other two major operating systems.

Jeff hit the nail on the head, even if it were a good idea it would not be
a good enough idea to try and make this change in general.
I am still going to keep trying to convice developers not to bury things
in context menus though.
I'm sure glad i did not ask about "single click"  like in KDE and
Microsoft Active Desktop ;)

Later
Alan