Re: [Usability] Re: [Desktop_architects] Printing dialog and GNOME

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

On 11 Jan, 2006, at 10:27 AM, Otto Wyss wrote:
> Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
> > On 18 Dec, 2005, at 9:51 AM, Otto Wyss wrote:
> ...
> > > See http://wyoguide.sourceforge.net/guidelines/dialogs.html#buttons
>  ...
> > I think that page is overdoing it a bit. Either have almost 
> > unreadable language, *or* have lots of guidelines that don't make 
> > sense on any platform. Doing both at once gives away the parody too 
> > early, IMO.
>
> Maybe you should mention which bit is overdoing or what is unreadable
> language so I can locate and improve it, else it might be you does the
> parody.
> ...

Listing the writing errors would be counter-productive not just because 
it's off-topic for this list, but also because good writing might lead 
to people accidentally taking your guide seriously. But these are the 
design statements on that page that don't make sense on any platform.
*   "It does not matter much if a dialog is or is not modal" is not
    true on any platform. The most obvious example is a dialog that
    tries to operate on something that was deleted while the dialog was
    open, when modality could have prevented that from happening.
*   "That doesn't mean a dialog can't have a life when it's hidden, on
    the contrary it's rather well suited for this" is pointlessly
    obscure.
*   No operating environments refer to windows as "ordinary frames".
*   "Only application which just change some settings/preferences
    should use a dialog" excludes approximately 100% of programs that
    use dialogs.
*   "The sizes should be increases [sic] by multiples of the minimal
    [sic] size" is not true on any platform.
*   "Buttons ... are usually located left-to-right on the bottom" is
    not true on any platform.
*   "The normal action button (usually ) is located in the 'middle' of
    the left-to-right order" is not true on any platform.
*   "[T]he cancel button has to be removed after a non cancelable state
    is reached" is not true on any platform.
*   "The cancel button may never be the default button" is not true on
    any platform.

That's excluding the statements that make sense on Windows but not on 
any other platform. And the other chapters are similarly wrong-headed 
in dozens of ways. Someone reading them is likely to come to the 
conclusion that wxWindows sucks, and use Swing or XUL instead.

--
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/