Re: [Usability] Re: EggToolbar

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On 23 Jul 2003, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote:

> Date: 23 Jul 2003 11:49:27 +0200
> From: Marco Pesenti Gritti <mpeseng tin it>
> To: Soeren Sandmann <sandmann daimi au dk>
> Cc: Michael Meeks <michael ximian com>,
>      Gtk Hackers <gtk-devel-list gnome org>, usability gnome org
> Subject: [Usability] Re: EggToolbar
>
>
> >         - GtkToolButtons can't do priority_text, because the usability
> >           people think it's a bad idea:
> >
> > 		http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2002-September/msg00144.html
> >
> > 		http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2002-September/msg00140.html
> >
> > 		http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2002-August/msg00085.html
>
> Was a real call made about this ? According to Dave Bordoley it was simply decided priority text
> was not a good default, but that it should have been kept as an option.

It is a terrible default.
To make it easier to learn it helps to have text labels on the button.

Iconography is often a poor substitute for ones native written langauge.
Bigger easier to hit buttons are an incidental bonus.

Tooltips are too slow and better used as a short informative sentence than
a short word or two.

> Also, if it has been decided that priority text should not be

I think comments that it should not be the default were taken too far.
It might be advisable to force developers to explicityly enable it in
their applications, no point showing it to users if on one has provided
adequatep priority text.

The state of the old widgets probably also contributed to negative
comments, when the toolbar also needed to be fixed.

> in control center make sense ? I guess most toolbars would go out of screen.

Most toolbars need to be fixed.
Many Gnome applications are barely usable on smaller screens.
I filed a report against the HIG in bugzilla, applications must try to
avoid excluding users with crap hardware and small displays, developers
and designers invariably have better hardware.

Microsoft have clearly made efforts to accomodate users with older
hardware, if you look at MSword 97 you will see that the maint toolbars
are both the same size and small enought to fit on a 640x480 display.
Conveniently on a display ~1200 wide you can fit them both nicely on the
one line, which is nice for users with good hardware too.

As has been mentioned before a toolbar with as many as 10-15 items is
probably already too cluttered for a developers to really know what the
prorities are.  Smaller toolbars and customisable toolbars allow users to
choose what they really want if the defaults are ninadequate.

I would really hate to see a few bad implementations and the limitations
of older toolbars to completely kill off priority text (or whatever you
want to call it).

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

PS I deliberately did not crosspost as I am not on those other lists.