Re: [Usability] Options, Check, Toggle, Exclusive

[Jacob Beauregard <jake13jake comcast net>]

I think your point is that this thread is getting way too technical. 
I still think the issue should be solved to convey you should just click on 
the text and not just the checkbox/radio button. Mostly because I actually do 
that.

Here are other issues I think are far more important:

Really, we more need reorganization of the window menu. A user can shade a 
window with a configured double click action, but this isn't conveyed in the 
window menu. The window menu is also a bit messy. 

Configuration for mouse actions, which is mostly a flexibility issue, but I 
could see this being an accessibility issue as well. This, along with 
inability to easily reorder titlebar buttons, is probably the biggest reason 
I don't use GNOME on my laptop.

Configuration for both snap zones and stick zones (or movement distance to 
connect and separate windows, respectively). I know KDE uses snapping, and 
GNOME uses sticking, and why not just have them both, if GNOME doesn't 
already?

On Wednesday 16 May 2007 10:52:15 Shaun McCance wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-05-17 at 00:44 +1200, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
> > On May 16, 2007, at 12:31 PM, Jacob Beauregard wrote:
> > > Wow, I like this thread. How about instead of sliding, which seems to
> > > have spread some controversy, the age-old chain-link symbol is used?
> >
> > Remember that the same appearance needs to work for horizontal lines of
> > radio buttons, not just vertical lines. For example:
> >
> >      Weeks start on: ( ) Sunday  (*) Monday
> >
> > So don't get too excited about drawing visual links between the radio
> > buttons. :-)
> >
> > It also needs to work for two-dimensional arrays of radio buttons. For
> > example, the four font rendering radio buttons that have a 2*2 layout
> > in the Font Preferences window. (That particular example is crack, but
> > the layout itself is legitimate.)
>
> (I'm only replying to this email because I happened to have
> just read it.  I'm really replying to the thread in general.)
>
> So here's a sampling of the points I've seen raised in this thread:
>
> 1) Toggle buttons look just like command buttons when they're "off".
> 2) There's no visual indication of the mutual exclusivity of radio
>    buttons.
> 3) There's no visual indication that labels for radio buttons and
>    check buttons are also clickable.
>
> Point (1) is interesting, and I think should be pursued further.
> But points (2) and (3) just seem like we're hacking solutions to
> problems that don't exist.
>
> I'm using Clearlooks, the default theme in upstream Gnome.  When
> I hover over the label of a radio button or check box, the entire
> clickable area prelights.  As you mouse your way towards the box,
> you'll see the prelight and, hopefully, realize you can click.
>
> As for mutual exlusivity, is there real-world data suggesting that
> this is frequently a problem?  Even if users don't immediately grok
> the round-means-select-one thing, can't they generally get it from
> context?  And if they can't, will connecting the radio buttons with
> chains or sliders actually convey that?
>
> There could potentially be cases where there are multiple radio
> button groups, and it isn't immediately clear which buttons belong
> to which group.  But if that case arises, I'm inclined to say that
> the developers just need to fix their interface, putting each group
> under a distinct heading.
>
> I don't want to be the luddite, but I worry that we're just adding
> visual noise to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
>
> --
> Shaun
>
>
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