[Usability] Resizability of windows

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

On May 1, 2006, at 10:25 PM, Alan Horkan wrote:
> ...
> Frankly I'd like to be able to maximize _every_ window (just about).

Heh, this brings back memories of the ever-expanding Preferences dialog 
in the Mozilla suite. A developer would add "just one more" checkbox, 
and increase the default size of the dialog to make room, to the point 
where it wouldn't even fit full-screen at 640*480. Or they'd leave the 
default size as it was, but have *their* profile remember the 
large-enough size, not being aware that it was being cropped for 
everyone else. Eventually Ben Goodger had to make the dialog 
non-resizable (partly) to save the developers from themselves.

The rule I adopted was that a window should be resizable only if 
∑(wanting to resize it ✕ benefit from doing so) > ∑(resizing it 
accidentally ✕ harm from doing so). So for example:
*   a window that contains a non-hardcoded list of things is more
    likely to deserve resizability than one that doesn't;
*   a window designed for occasional/shared use (e.g. a kiosk
    application) is less likely to deserve resizability than a
    productivity application;
*   an alert or progress window should never be resizable, because its
    sudden appearance makes it much more likely to be resized by
    mistake (but either of these types may have expanders that resize
    the window to show additional information).

This didn't stifle the arguments over whether particular windows should 
be resizable in Mozilla, because geeks (1) substantially underestimate 
the probability that an average person will resize a window 
accidentally ("the mouse will stop jumping around if I clean my mouse 
ball? ... what's a mouse ball?"), and (2) vastly overestimate the 
average person's ability to understand what's happened when they get 
their mouse unstuck only to find that a normally-small window is 
suddenly covering most of the screen. (For a similar example, see the 
section beginning "One day a friend called me up" in 
<http://joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000059.html>.)
But geeks can, if they wish, configure their window manager to make 
every window resizable and maximizable regardless of what the 
application says, so there's no need for them to goad application 
authors into altering their resizability suggestions.

Having said all that, I don't understand why the Theme Preferences 
window is not a dialog and is resizable, but doesn't become maximizable 
automatically. That looks like too much flexibility in Metacity.

> Different languages will have different string lengths and 
> accessibility themes will have different font sizes so if your user 
> interface will not resize nicely it is BROKEN by design.
> ...

But if someone *needs* to resize a window to see all the text, it is 
broken just as much.

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