Re: [Usability] "Finish" vs. "Close" in gnome-control-center dialogs

["Elijah Newren" <newren gmail com>]

On 3/23/06, Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie> wrote:
> Since Dobey says the button label was changed to 'Finish' after user
> testing I'm not inclined to disagree with the nice people at Novell (but
> if you really wanted to nit-pick you could ask about how the testing was
> conducted, if the sample of users and test case was really representative,
> ask if an instant apply dialog is absolutely necessary and as has already

Did you not follow the massive (though fairly heavily one-sided)
flamewars on d-d-l, p.g.o. and who knows where else expressing that
the original change (to make it not be instant apply) was felt
extremely strongly to be the wrong solution (by Fedora, Ubuntu, JDS,
tons of developers, all authors of the HIG who commented on the issue,
etc., etc.).  ;-)

Asking if an instant apply dialog is necessary is not a useful
question at this point.  :)

> been done in the bug report point out the inconsistency of doing it for
> only one applet ;)

When dobey mentioned the user testing and its results, it rang a
strong bell with me--I had felt the exact same way about that dialog
(and a few others) when I first used them.  Personally, I strongly
feel that "close" sucks for that dialog and that "finish" is much
better.  (Which is why I gave one approval to the UI change despite
the inconsistency we knew it would introduce; others objected strongly
on the consistency basis, but that's all water under the bridge now.)

> It is a pity this inconsistency wasn't caught before Gnome 2.14 or changed
> in all applets at the same time but but there just aren't enough hours in
> the day :(

It was caught (see e.g.
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/release-team/2006-February/msg00107.html);
however, there was insufficient time to fix everything, especially
given that we were already past UI freeze.  Part of the problem was
that another fix was attempted (making the dialog not be instant
apply), but there was overwhelming backlash and complaints due to that
change; by the time that first change was reverted, though, there
wasn't much time to properly fix it and all other capplets.


Just my $0.02,
Elijah