Re: [Usability] ?extraneous text? in dialogs

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

On Oct 19, 2006, at 10:45 PM, Joachim Noreiko wrote:
> ...
> --- Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com> wrote:
> ...
> > Explaining difficult things in interfaces should be encouraged, 
> > because these explanations are much more likely to be read than if 
> > they are in a manual.
> ...
> IIRC the HIG currently says there should be no documentation-type text 
> in dialogs (though the definition of this is a bit tricky).

Yes. They say: "Do not include text in windows that describes how to 
use the interface, for example 'You can install a new theme by dropping 
it here'. As well as adding visual clutter, descriptive labels can also 
conflict with information provided in documentation."
<http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/language.html>

If "text ... that describes how to use the interface" means "text that 
explains how to use individual controls", I agree in general. For 
example, Evolution's account setup assistant shouldn't start with 
"Click Forward to begin"; it should just label the button "Begin". (Or 
better, not have the utterly useless first page at all. Or even better, 
not be an assistant at all.) But I disagree on the specific example the 
HIGs give, of advertising drop targets. Because there is no standard 
visual affordance for a drop target, and because we are light years 
away from the Mac situation where people can just assume drag-and-drop 
will work because it almost always does, most drop targets *should* be 
advertised. (Again, frequency of use is a factor -- that file dialogs 
and large chunks of document windows are drop targets should not be 
advertised, because they're visible so much of the time that 
advertising would get boring fast.)

If "text ... that describes how to use the interface" means "any 
explanatory text", then that's directly contradicted by the available 
usability research, and is best ignored until that section is revised.

As for conflicts with documentation, why should that apply to 
explanatory text but not to the interface itself? if Gnome developers 
worried about such conflicts but didn't write the documentation 
themselves, we'd probably still be on Gnome 2.8.

> Perhaps it should be updated with something along the lines of the 
> above?
> ...

Agreed. I'll submit a patch unless Calum gets there first. :-)

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