Re: [Usability] New "Add to panel" dialog

[Kirk Bridger <kbridger shaw ca>]

One of Calum's blog comments stuck with me, and I totally agree with it.
He mentioned that figuring out what applets are already present on a
toolbar can be tough, particularly for a new user.  Even after using
Gnome of over a year now I still have to guess what the names of my
applets are when I'm adding.  I know what those things do, but I can't
remember what they were called.

And that's where the categorization fails, I think.  It's the same thing
in XP.  Microsoft introduced categorization to the Control Panel, and it
is one of the first things I turn off.  Perhaps that is due to my use
case (I know the names of the caplets, not what category someone at
Microsoft thought they should reside in).

But Callum's point was making it easier to figure out what a user
already has for themselves.  I don't pretend to know what is possible in
the graphical toolkit right now, but how about simply highlighting the
currently active applets both in the toolbar and in the Add to Panel
dialogue?  This way a user can very easily see what an applet looks
like, and will be able to easily associate functionality with names.

Please excuse the roughness here, but I drew a little diagram of what
I'm talking about.

Currently (Debian SID, so Gnome 2.10)
http://thebside.ca/public_content/images/applets.current.png

Proposed
http://thebside.ca/public_content/images/applets.proposed.png

The applet that is highlighted in the Add to Panel dialogue is
highlighted in a colour, and it actually pointed out to the user where
they are already using it.  Any applets in the list that are also used,
but are not selected in the list, should also have a colour to separate
them from the crowd.

Just a thought - I have no idea if this is even possible.  But I believe
that categorization introduces another layer of abstraction that
experienced users will have to struggle through, and new users will have
to browse through. I prefer the flat list shown above, we might just
want to make it more useful to the user rather than ditch it entirely.

Kirk




On Thu, 2005-10-20 at 22:33 +0200, Diego Moya wrote:
> On 20/10/05, Manu Cornet <Manu Cornet gmail com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi !
> >
> > I have been working on a new version of the "add to panel" dialog, for
> > the Ubuntu distro. This dialog is already available by default in the
> > new Ubuntu "Breezy Badger" version.
> >
> 
> Good work! I liked the previous version, and now that I've updated to
> Breezy I like the new one too. Incremental search and categories
> provide great advantage in scanning for a particular widget. I don't
> feel that the 2D layout brings any usability improvements. though. I
> preferred the linear layout since its easier to do a complete scan.
> 
> 
> 
> > * Although the current categories and applets organization is the result
> > of a serious mind job (and I find them quite logical), this can be
> > modified extremely easily (as a matter of fact, apart from the few
> > "internal" applets, categories do not actually belong to the panel's code).
> 
> You should really perform an "open" card sorting. It's a technique for
> solving just this problem. With at least 15 users you can get an
> adequate categories list.
> 
> http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/card_sorting_a_definitive_guide.php
> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20040719.html
> 
> Also several tools for doing a software-based card sorting:
> http://condor.depaul.edu/~jtoro/cardzort/cardsorting.htm
> http://uzilla.mozdev.org/cardsort.html
> 
> 
> >
> > What do you think of this new dialog ? Do you see any other possible
> > enhancements ?
> 
> It doesn't work for the task of adding *several* new applets. It
> shouldn't close when you press the + button, and the "Cancel" button
> should be renamed "Close". It's far easier pressing "Close" if you
> wanted to add a single applet that reopen the dialog and then scroll
> to the same point if you want to add another one.
> 
> 
> 
> On 20/10/05, Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie> wrote:
> > Calum Benson commented on this before and I will repeat my comments at
> > from the time.  Both the current dialog and new dialog you are proposing
> > are trying to deal with the problem of large collection of applets and I
> > feel neither succeed with this very well.  Unless the number of applets
> > can be kept much much smaller I'm a whole lot happier with the using menus
> > and submenus as older versions of Gnome used to do.
> 
> Submenus are a usability nightmare - they're hard to navigate both for
> they're difficult to open with the mouse and because they hide their
> contents from sight. I prefer a  plain list of big icons anyday.
> 
> >
> > I can certainly agree there is a problem here but I dont think any of the
> > proposed solutions have been substantially better and none of them
> > do very well if you allow a large set of applets.
> >
> 
> A solution for many items would be to maintain the current form and
> provide a list of hyperlinks to the categories. The redundant indexing
> of Search and this "Table of Contents" would support both possible
> uses of browsing and looking for a specific item.
> _______________________________________________
> Usability mailing list
> Usability gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability