Re: [Usability] Save Icon

[Evandro Fernandes Giovanini <efgiovanini gmail com>]

Em Ter, 2006-01-31 às 16:18 +0000, Iain * escreveu:
> On 1/31/06, Evandro Giovanini <efgiovanini gmail com> wrote:
> > > > The solution they found for the problem was a bad one, because it
> > > > affected some people in a negative way. People that would otherwise not
> > > > be confused.
> > >
> > > It affected other people in a positive way.
> >
> >  But they could have affected  these people in a positive way without
> > affecting anyone in a negative way, like I suggested. Instead of creating a
> > Go button, simply add a tooltip for these people.
> 
> A tooltip would have annoyed other people: Me for instance...it feels
> like clippy
> "I see you've typed a URL...if you press enter, then it might actually
> do something"
> 

But *you*'d never see the tooltip, so it would never annoy you. The
tooltip would appear only if you typed something but didn't press Enter
for a long time.

> >
> > > > Making computers easy for people with zero computer experience and zero
> > > > interest in computers is a very good goal to have because it will lead
> > > > to better design decisions that benefit *everyone*
> > >
> > > This goal sounds very very very similar to the goal Microsoft had when
> > > they added the evil Go button do you not think?
> >
> >  The Go button:
> >
> >  1) makes life easier for some people (the example you mentioned), and;
> 
> The Go button made "computers easy for people with zero computer
> experience and zero interest in computers". This was your premise of
> how to make better design decisions.
> 

What I meant by that is that you don't have to look at "design it so
newbies can use it" and "design it so it provides the best experience
for all of our users" as two separate things, which I think is what
Microsoft does more often than necessary, and is the main reason so many
people just don't like what they design.

You mentioned clippy, which indeed sucks. What sucks even more is that
they couldn't design the program in the first place so that no single
person would ever need the clippy. I think it was Steve Jobs (in his
NeXT days) that said that one of the things they used to do to design
their applications was making sure people didn't need the help system.
That's a perfect contrast with the clippy, and in this particular case I
think Jobs was right.

I think the interface has to get out of your way to be good. An example
of this is looking at a Nautilus window in spatial mode: nearly 100% of
what you see in the window is what you wanted to see in the first place
(unless you opened a folder to view a web site). I don't think a program
with 2 main toolbars and over 15 toolbar buttons is doing that.

> >  2) makes the user experience more annoying for some people (point and click
> > a small button instead of just pressing Enter after typing a URL with they
> > keyboard).
> 
> Are these people "annoyed"? Do they actually care that they are doing
> it the less efficient way?
> 

The real question is, do we care?

If people move their hands to the mouse to point at a very small "Go"
button every single time they type a new URL they'll get tired of doing
that. Whether they realized it or not. 

Cheers,
Evandro