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

["Elijah Newren" <newren gmail com>]

On 3/24/06, Joachim Noreiko <jnoreiko yahoo com> wrote:
> --- Rodney Dawes <dobey novell com> wrote:>
> > > Consistency is good.
> >
> > Consistency is good. But what is consistent is arguable, and usability
> > should take precedence.
>
> No, the two must go hand in hand.

Telling developers (Rodney in this case) what they should do with a
tone like this really doesn't help your position.  ;)  Besides, go
read the other parts of the thread;  there was an either-or decision
that had to be made on this particular point for 2.14.  You make a
nice claim, and I agree that both is better, but it just didn't match
reality.

> Users are quite capable of getting in a tizzy about
> inconsistencies: "why does that pref tool say 'close'
> and this one 'finish'? Does that mean they behave
> differently?"
>
> I agree that "Finish" is an improvement over "Close"
> with its X icon.
> I'm just disappointed that we introduced this
> inconsistency when it could have been avoided.
> We should have either held back the change on the
> background pref tool, or rallied the troops (say at
> gnome-love) and got the lot done.
> GNOME is meant to be a complete, integrated desktop
> environment: that means changes like this *must*
> happen in step.

Thanks for the opinion.  You have made it clear, from your suggestion
that the change should have been held back, that you hold consistency
(which plays a part as a subset of usability) to be more important
than other parts of usability such as having a UI that makes sense. 
You are not alone (see
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/release-team/2006-February/msg00139.html
and others).  But you aren't law either.  ;-)  I think it is important
to look at it on a case by case basis, and in this particular case, I
felt that a UI that made sense was more important than consistency.  I
still feel that way.  Discussing further isn't going to change it
either.  ;-)