Re: [Usability] Save Icon

[Evandro Fernandes Giovanini <efgiovanini gmail com>]

Em Ter, 2006-01-31 às 02:07 +0000, Iain * escreveu:
> > No, what I'm saying is that doing the wrong thing because someone (in
> > this case, Microsoft) made it popular is not a good idea.
> 
> In no way is it "the wrong thing"
> 

Maybe I shouldn't have used the word "wrong", but it certainly has
problems.

> It could be argued that it is easier to get to the toolbar button than
> it is to the edit menu item, so we should maybe remove the menu item
> instead.
> 

My biggest gripe with some toolbar buttons is that they can actually
makes it harder to use the desktop, even if it is easier to get to using
the mouse.

> > Sounds interesting. However, let me give an example: Internet Explorer
> > has a "Go" button next to the URL bar. It turns out some people will
> > actually move their hands to the mouse after typing an URL, then point
> > and click at the button (instead of just hitting 'Enter'). You could say
> > the "Go" button makes people less productive, but in better words it
> > just makes their computer experience worse and more tiring. The problem
> > is that grandmas don't realize that, and they'll do what the interface
> > is leading them to do.
> 
> The thing you're missing about this is that the Go button was actually
> a solution to a specific problem: People often typed the url in
> without pressing the enter key and sat waiting for something to
> happen.
> 
> For those people, adding the Go button made their computer experience
> infinitely better, finally their fancy whizzbang program did
> something.
> 

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.

A better solution would be to show a tooltip after N seconds the user
typed a URL and did not press Enter. It would fix the problem for those
users and it wouldn't cause problems for anyone.

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*, including people
with lots of interest in computers. I think that's what makes a well
designed interface, and that's where Microsoft fails a lot IMO. 

Cheers,
Evandro