Re: [Usability] Double-click in notification area?

[Daniele Levorato <daniele levorato infocamere it>]

> > All the other Desktop out there works with double click... there's
> > no reason to make GNOME different, breaking a standard.
> 
> This line of reasoning seems like an admission that Gnome can never do
> anything any better than any other desktop, since 

No, it's not an admissing of that... simply the fact that Gnome is
always listening for what the community wants and think... not just what
can be theorically better but unpracticable since many users can't "feel
at home" with that... we have to remember that gnome is a desktop and
desktops are used by users...

> doing things better
> would require doing them differently, and could cause confusion.

but your point always start from the consideration that "single click"
is better... while for example, since i think it's not better at all
(but it's my opinion), it would cause many user to move to another
desktop... I've seen many collegues to go back to Windows or to switch
to KDE for even less motivations...
There're are so many things in which Gnome can "do something better"...
gnome developers don't need a single-click policy to demonstarte it...
won't win the nobel for being the first to really use "single click"
policy...
there're many other more important issues...

> 
> > You said that nobody has shown you a good argument against single
> > click... but in my opinion you haven't argued too anything really
> > valid against double-click.
> 
> There are at least two fairly strong arguments: double-click
> activation is used inconsistently, and requires an action that can be
> difficult to perform for people with limited mobility or in limited
> environments such as on kiosks or palm computers.

Well... I can't really agree with "double-click" inconsistecy... Alan
Harkan has already explained why so... talking about inconsistency is
too much for this "issue"

> 
> In addition to the inconsistency and difficulty, double-click
> activation seems to violate another tenant of good UI design: that of
> optimizing for the common cases.  At least in my own use of the
> desktop, there are several common actions: activating an object,
> dragging an object, and performing a menu-selected action on an
> object; and one relatively uncommon action: selecting one or more
> object to perform some action on at a later time.  

Don't confuse optimization with introducing practices that can increase
accidental errors: from this viewpoint even a "delete file" action is
optimized if you drop the rmation dialog... but is enough safe?
As already written, sometimes having a click to perform action can
really cause unwanted actions to be performed... even for example giving
focus to another window.
Finally talking about "optimization" referring to single vs. double
click seems useless to me... there's a microsecond difference!

> Yet, wherever
> double-click activation is in effect these priorities are reversed:
> selecting an object is the easiest thing to do

And it'right for me since it's even the less dangerous thing... 

> , while the more
> frequently performed actions require an additional, albeit minor,
> effort.

effort? Just for another rapid click... uhmmm still can't see the
difference. I prefer to let the desktop know that I'm really sure to
operate on the item (using with a duoble-click) than having any unwanted
action to be performed just by mistake (with a single click)...
something like "Oops, I was used to double-click because at work I'm
compelled to use windows" or "Oops, I was doing a DRAG but I had a
problem with the button and so resulted in an action" or "Oops it was
the other icon I really wanted to click"...
No way... so far I can see many anoying things to happen with single
click and no real advantages.

> 
> How about this as a possible approach:
> 
> - Left click activates (everywhere!)
> 
> - Left press begins a drag-n-drop operation
> 
> - Right click pops up a menu like now, but with "Select" (or perhaps
>   "Toggle selection" or "Deselect") rather than "Open" as the first
>   menu item.
> 
> - Selection of one or more items continues to be available through
>   control-left-click, for the experienced users who seem to be the
>   target audience for this type of feature.
> 
> - Double-click activation is relegated to the dustbin of computer
>   history, except for its continued use in legacy desktops where it
>   serves as a textbook example of optimizing for uncommon cases in UI
>   design classes.
> 

Yes it's an alternative... but again where're the advantages?
We are talking about "optimizing" or changing something that is there
since the first X Window I think... and it's there not because "all the
user are used to it" but mainly becouse there's no reason to change it
since it is not incosistent and not bad at all.
However this is my opinion, i'm not trying to change yours... there are
many things to talk about, that talking about "double click" is like
talking about "sex of angels" (it's an italian way-of-saying... don't
know how to say in english... means that is something useless for which
there's no solution at all).

> -- John Kodis.
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> Usability gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability

                                    
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