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

[Diego Moya <turingt gmail com>]

On 21/10/05, Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie> wrote:
> > 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 expect part of it is that I am also familar with Microsoft Windows which
> depending on your configuration allows you to access the control panel
> items as menu items.  There was a Tweak UI option (at least for older
> versions of windows) which allowed the user to make the menus much more
> extensive which improves discoverability direct access at the expense of
> ... navigation I suppose, but I prefer the consistent use of menus a
> system I already know how to manage and can quickly read
> thanks to straight alphabetically sorted columns.
>
> It seems like a lot of work for not much gain and developers are
> determined to scupper any system by including far too many applets to be
> easily managable.

Hmmmmm... that let me wondering if we could just merge your "quick
discoverability" requirement with my Table of Contents links idea.
What if rolling over the links activate a search for just that
category? Thus moving the mouse over the ToC would do the quick scan
of all categories. A mockup:

---------------------------------
Launchers & menus
Accessories
Desktop & windows
Utilities
....
---------------------------------
| Launchers & menus
| Applet 1
| Applet 2
|
| Accessories
| Applet 3
|
| Desktop & windows
| Applet 4
| Applet 5
| ...
---------------------------------


And when moving the mouse over Desktop & windows:

---------------------------------
Launchers & menus
Accessories
Desktop & windows <--
Utilities
....
---------------------------------
| Desktop & windows
| Applet 4
|
---------------------------------



Really the main problem with submenus is that they're fragile -
disappear if you move the mouse vertically. By "locking" the search
when clicking a category, this problem would be not present. And by
showing the whole list by default, the difficulty of scanning for an
item for which you don't know the category would also be solved.


> So far with the past few iterations I think we have been trading one set
> of problems for another and inflicting a whole lot of software churn on
> users.
>

That's what user testing is for. If a good idea on paper turns to have
big problems then prototiped, it's better to stay with the current
implementation. Adding applets is usually not a frequent operation,
though, so it makes sense to provide an interface without any required
learning or memorization.