Re: [Usability]Re: Toolbar editor

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

On Wed, 2003-03-26 at 13:38, mpeseng tin it wrote:

> Toolbar items costumization is listed as a requirement in the Toolbars section
> of the HIG and it's part of the toolbar GEP.

Ah yes, I'd forgotten it was mentioned in the HIG :)  I haven't read the
GEP for a long time though, I really should.

> In a web browser I prefer to keep one toolbar with only a few items(Back,
> Forward, Reload, Stop, Location), while other users prefer to have two toolbars
> with more items like Bookmarks, History ...

That's a good example, which raises an important point-- you say some
users prefer to have two toolbars, while others prefer one.  But that
doesn't involve "editing" any toolbars, nor should it... that's more a
case of being able to turn different task-related toolbars on or off
depending on what you're currently doing, which is quite a different
thing IMHO.

> In general I feel the ability to have only the more often used actions on
> the toolbar (and I guess "more often used" depends on user preferences)
> good for usability because you can find more easily the items you need.

Yes it is, but the whole point of a toolbar is only to contain the "more
often used actions".  Infrequently-used items have no business being on
the toolbar to start with, the question really  is whether we should
allow users to add them later if they want to :)

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