Re: [Usability] Selection problems in List view

["Diego Moya (a.k.a. TuringTest)" <turingt gmail com>]

On 12/05/05, Daniel Borgmann <daniel borgmann gmail com> wrote:
> On 5/12/05, Diego Moya (a.k.a. TuringTest) <turingt gmail com> wrote:
> > With a semantics of "left button for selection", double-click could be
> > used like a Shift-click or Ctrl-click. List widgets already work that
> > way in many systems. It's just that the "default" action would never
> > be "Open", but always "extend the selection".
> 
> I'm a bit confused, do you suggest that a doubleclick just doesn't
> activate anything, so you'd have to use the context menu?

Yes, but that goes mainly as rants to myself. I don't expect every
gnome app to begin working that way any soon! :-)

In my perfect interface, commands would be invoked through pie menus
or gestures, both accessible with the right button. I have configured
Firefox to work that way. A single click with the right button,
without dragging, would activate the default action (easier than a
double click).


> 
> > > > (have you ever seen users double-clicking a link in the browser?).
> > >
> > > Gosh, my mum does it all the time :D.
> > >
> >
> > That's because in everything but Web browsers, one click Selects and
> > two clicks Opens.
> 
> This is not exactly true, everything that resembles a button is
> activated on single click. I understand left click as "touching" an
> item and ideally it should be obvious from the appearance of the item,
> whether touching it will trigger some action or not. But even if it's
> not obvious (like links in web browsers), I'm not sure if this is
> really a problem, as long as the action is not harmful. Despite the
> occasional annoyance, users seem to manage pretty well so far. :)

Hmmmm... you're right. But then, you can't select buttons, so there
still is no select/activate ambiguity there.

In links, you have the problem of trying to select a word inside it
(it's impossible), for example if you want to parse it into a
spellchecker or a dictionary.