Re: [Usability]Keeping the Quit menu item

[Jackson Fox <jackson_fox earthlink net>]

On Thu, 2003-03-20 at 03:27, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:

> Most mainstream GUIs have Quit, and they have undergone a lot of
> rigorous user testing. So it seems hard to believe that it requires a
> lot of geeky knowledge or a grasp of the process concept to understand
> Quit. If anything, removing it will result in people who switch from
> other platforms thinking "why can't I quit?" and feeling frustrated.

> I'm not saying it's impossible to come up with something better than
> existing UIs. But your argument that Quit is too hard to understand
> seems unlikely to be right.

And some GUIs use "Exit" and some use "Close."  Most seem to reflect the
1:1 mapping where Exit/Close/Quit will close the window from which it is
activated.  Some of these are app-centric (like Acrobat and Excel) where
only one window can exist at a time, and some are window-centric or
document-centric (like IE and Word) where many windows can exist at a
time.  But in each case Exit/Close/Quit still affects the windows from
which it was activated.  So this is really just reflects a need to
choose one term and stick with it.  The same behaviour is reflected
regardless.

The problem really comes when two or more of Exit/Close/Quit start
showing up.  The words themselves don't have enough variation in meaning
to clearly reflect how they will (differently) affect the window in
which they are found.  Phoenix drives me crazy because I will
instinctively select the last option in the File Menu to close a
window.  I'm frequently irritated to find ALL of my Phoenix windows
dissapearing because I accidentally clicked on "Quit" instead of
"Close".

I think "Quit" is too hard to understand when it exists alongside
"Close" and "Exit."

I think people will know what to do if they see a menu item that says
Exit/Close/Quit regardless of which it is.  Just don't make them choose
between them.

I personally prefer "Close" to "Quit" simply because "Close" better
reflects my desire to get rid of the window.

-- Jackson Fox