Re: [Usability] combo box guidelines?

["Kevin Carlson" <kdesltd gmail com>]

Maybe we should offer a way to do both and leave it up to the individual applications, so when GIMP fills the space you can complain about not preserving the position to the GIMP developers, or whatever.

Or, maybe we could fill the top part with options that would have been cut off from the bottom and scroll through a continuous list?

Or something else that I haven't come up with. It's ultimately up to whoever writes the actual software.

Peace
- Kevin Carlson

On 9/23/07, Jacob Beauregard <jake13jake comcast net> wrote:

Okay, let's list actions the user might want to do.
A. Change the option
B. Look at other options
C. Nothing

What would be the odds of each of these uses, and what would be the cost
to each of them? Does maintaining the currently-selected option in
different circumstances make it better or worse for the user? Are
different kinds of users going to have higher or lower costs with this
effect.

I'm not arguing that one way or the other is better, I am just saying
that I have experienced higher costs in certain situations when using
the combo-box.

I believe that A is representative of the experienced user, while B is
representative of the inexperienced user, and they will probably split
between A and B while using their application more and more. C may
represent an action that happens to both the experienced and
inexperienced user, yet to a lesser degree than the other two options.

In case A, if the option is visible, there is no cost. Otherwise, there
is a cost to the visibility of the option as well as choosing the option.

In case B, if the options are visible, there is no cost. Otherwise,
there is the cost of every option that isn't visible.

In case C, the cost is clicking the mouse again.

I DO NOT want you all to degenerate this issue into an "We're right,
you're wrong" conversation. It is clear that there is a lot of
disagreement. That is why I suggested that we create guidelines for
using the combo box. What I would like to see is some elaboration and
expansion on the different use cases so that we can all make an informed
decision of why something may be better or worse for different users
with different circumstances, and possibly use that as a guideline for
using the combo box in programs.

Caleb Marcus wrote:
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> I disagree, I think that if the options can't fit on the screen,
> moving it down to display the maximum number of options is more
> important than preserving the current position of the combo box.
>
> Benjamin Berg wrote:
> > On Sun, 2007-23-09 at 19:12
> +0100, Iain * wrote:
>
> >> Yeah thats a bug, not a usability issue...bugzilla.gnome.org
>
> >> would be the best place to take it...
>
> >
>
> > There are some bugs (eg. [1]) related to this, and it is the
>
> > intended behaviour. By placing the current selected item on top
> of
>
> > the combobox you can just click twice on a combobox and the
>
> > selection will not change. Personally I think that this behaviour
>
> > does make sense. It maybe looks weird and it is kind of annoying
> in
>
> > some cases, but personally I don't know how it could be improved.
>
> > (And I don't believe that moving all the items to use up the
> space
>
> > is the right thing to do.)
>
> >
>
> > Benjamin
>
> >
>
> > [1] http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=129463 or
>
> > http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=374871
>
> >
>
> >
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>
> >
>
> >
>
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>
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>
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