Re: [Usability] Re: Mozilla Firefox 2.0 Chrome Changes

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

On 2 Mar 2006, at 15:40, Luis Villa wrote:

> On 3/2/06, Kristoffer Lundén <kristoffer lunden gmail com> wrote:
> > On 3/2/06, Luis Villa <luis villa gmail com> wrote:
> > > On 3/2/06, Kristoffer Lundén <kristoffer lunden gmail com> wrote:
> >
> > > > Hiding the statusbar seems like a
> > > > huge mistake though, how then to verify suspect links?
> >
> > > So come up with a better way to do it. :)
> >
> > Eh.. a better way than removing it? Keeping it, of course! Or if you
> > meant come up with something better that the statusbar, I don't think
> > that is my job. That would be the job of whoever wants it removed - I
> > think it's fine.
> >
> > > The information could be in
> > > the mouseover popup; i could only come up when the target link in  
> > > some
> > > way doesn't match the text of the link;
> >
> > How could that possibly be decided? If a link says "Go to paypal" and
> > the link is "paypal.bleh.com" instead of "www.paypal.com" a human can
> > easily see that something is wrong, but a computer? And if the link
> > text says "Gimme!" instead with the same links?

FWIW I have to agree; I don't much like apps that only show target  
URLs in tooltips, because tooltips obviously take half a second or so  
to appear, so it always feels like they're slowing me down.  (The  
Mac's Mail.app is a prime offender here.)  However, if the user has / 
chosen/ to hide the status bar (Mail.app just doesn't have one to  
start with, so you've no choice), it's probably quite a reasonable  
thing to do /instead/.

> > What's so crappy about the statusbar? It's an excellent place to show
> > extra information
>
> It is a terrible place to show extra information, because one of the
> things that usability testing has shown over and over again is that
> very few people ever see information put down there.

It's certainly a terrible place to show essential or transient  
information.  However, it can be a pretty useful place to show non- 
essential information in response to users' actions, which, once  
they've noticed it the first time, they'll know to look there for  
again in future.

Cheeri,
Calum.

--
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            Java Desktop System Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum             +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems