Re: [Usability] Icon selector, 2nd mockup

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

On Fri, 2003-12-05 at 01:44, Bryan W Clark wrote:

> I like the new mockups.

<aol>me too</aol>

> This is where I should have followed this thread more, because I don't
> recall everything that was discussed now.  Either I said it or someone
> else did and I just agreed in my head, but I want to repeat that I think
> displaying the file names should go.  And here's why I think that:

Well, my previous comment on that was that I'd eventually like to see
some sort of type-ahead find search implemented in every control that
lets you select from a list, which includes this one, and that doesn't
really work so well when you can't see the filenames.  Although you
could, perhaps, just show the filename of the currently selected icon
underneath the list, rather than showing all of them. 

(Rationale: earlier this week I was looking for the xchat icon in this
dialog amongst hundreds of others, and not being able to recall whether
it was called gnome-xchat.png, xchat.png, cool-xchat-icon.png or
whatever, it took rather longer than it ought to have done...)

Another reason I've just thought of is that it might be important to be
able to distinguish between PNG and SVG format icons, which you can't
always do just by looking at them.

However, I agree the primary goal is visual, and a compromise could be
to show the name of the currently-selected icon underneath the list, for
example.  (Possibly also in tooltips, but they're not so good for people
who can only use the keyboard).

I also have to agree I'm not keen on the tabs, I think I'd rather see
some sort of filtering mechanism, maybe a bit like the one red-carpet
uses to let you choose which channels' packages you want to see.  Which
is pretty much what you had in your original mockup, except I couldn't
tell if there was an "All Categories" option in the dropdown list in
that one :)

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