Re: [Usability] Disable Tooltips, what is that about?

[Dan Zlotnikov <dzlotnik perpugilliam csclub uwaterloo ca>]

I'm with Sebastian and his suggestion of making tooltips request-only.
True, most frequent users of tooltips *will* be new users, but... Unless
the user is already familiar with the concept of tooltips, they won't keep
their cursor hovering over that one key for an indeterminate amount of
time.

My problems with tooltips:

1) The delay in getting one. I am forced to wait for whatever was
determined to be the appropriate delay before finding out what the
bloody thing is. In a new program that translates into inordinate delays.

I vote in favour of "by request" tooltips, linked to, perhaps, a
right-click on a mouse. Or a shift-click. As long as this is a uniform
standard for all GNOME programs, it will be easily (and quickly) learned
and used.

2) The restriction of tooltips to icons only. First, if you need a tooltip
for an icon, then the icon is most likely not a very well-chosen one.
Second, how do two words in a menu give me more information about what
that option does, as compared to an icon? I'm on a Win2K box at this
moment using WinSSH Secure Shell. Menu choice: View->Reset Terminal.
What's that do?

Who was it that decided tooltips should only be restricted to icons and
buttons? Frequently, specialized commands (other than "cut," "copy," etc.)
are unclear in their one- to two-word descriptions in the menu.

3) The salience (for lack of a better word) of the tooltip itself. If my
cursor is positioned over a button in such a way that the tooltip appears
underneath the cursor, I will be unable to click that button without
moving the cursor.

Of course, that's just plain bad design; ideally the tooltip should
appear at the bottom edge of the cursor rather than on the button itself,
to minimize obstruction of all kinds.

Dan