Re: [Usability] Locating the mouse pointer when it is on the bottom of the screen?

[John Keller <jkeller matchbox fr>]

Reinout van Schouwen wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, John Keller wrote:
>
> > True, it's just that programming an application then becomes full of 
> > special cases. (Not talking about drawing programs, but radio buttons 
> > vs. text-filled buttons, for example.)
>
>
> It seems to me that a lowel level toolkit or something should take care 
> of that. Application programmers should be unaffected.

That would be nice, but I'm sure that as soon as you (as a programmer) 
get away from the built-in widgets, you're going to have to worry about 
this. The fact that the demo didn't have it is telling, for me.

> > rotating arrow becomes disconcerting. I would expect that, on some 
> > unconscious level, a user would be disconcerted by his virtual "hand" 
> > being so free to rotate through 360 degrees. Not to mention that the 
> > "joint" - the pivot point - is the tip, not the base.
>
>
> I don't think this really is a concern. In the UI on a computer, we 
> don't have the physical restraints from the real world - why try to 
> replicate them?

It's not replication, but the psychology of it. I'm don't know for sure, 
but I would expect to find that most all users make a connection to the 
on-screen arrow as an extension of their body.

Just because the computer gives boundless possibilities (aside from a 
flat screen) doesn't mean that anything goes. Why else attempt to 
replicate a desktop, or leverage the mind's spatial abilities by 
presenting a concrete universe?

I don't think that an arrow with ties to real-world behavior is an 
example of being a slave to real-world physical constraints, but rather 
leveraging a user's real-world experiences.

- John