Re: [Usability] My second file chooser proposal

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Mon, 15 Sep 2003, Sean Middleditch wrote:

> Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 15:09:25 -0400
> From: Sean Middleditch <elanthis awesomeplay com>
> To: Usability List <usability gnome org>
> Subject: Re: [Usability] My second file chooser proposal
>
> On Mon, 2003-09-15 at 15:15, Magnus Bergman wrote:
>
> > 3 Works from top to bottom and from left to right.
> >
> >   A human scans through information in this order, therefore the
> >   widgets should be placed in this order. (See my previous mail for
> >   more details.)
>
> Minor nitpick - I don't think all humans scan in this order; just those

As far as I knew scan order is entirely cultural and based on reading.

Europeans and North Americans and more, read from left to right, top to
bottom.

I was quite surprised to see that the Asian version of Microsoft Windows I
saw had everthing left to right, but directional text support is difficult
and Western influence is strong.

> I'm not personally aware of any languages that flow bottom to top, but
> there are plenty that go right to left.  If a dialog only works well in
> left-to-right scenarios, it could be less than ideal.

Japanese goes in columns from top to bottom, right to left.

I would not be surprised if Asian designers wanted to come up with
designs that better suited their culture.  At this stage there must be
quite a few cultural oddities in Gnome we dont even realise.

> I'm no human computer interaction expert, tho.  Just relying on
> oft-failed common sense here.  ;-)

- Alan