GNOME.org
 

Re: [Usability] A New Start Menu Design, which resemble windows


 
I am users from windows, that is no shame. Jobs learned his ideas of GUI from Xerox.  But windows succeeded later. There must have something that could be learned in Windows.

Really, I don't want to flame anybody... I've used Windows for many years... but really the only valuable thing that should be learned from M$ and Windows is... Marketing! ... and "mind manipulation"...

 
Using a GtkWindow as a Start menu, I could add whatever I or you like on the start menu. I could add Tabs in a start menu, and many others.


I can see that we are not really on the same path... matter of opinions perhaps... but I think that a "menu" is a "menu". Full stop. The user expect it to work as a menu. What's the point in having tabs in there? why should the menu GUI be cluttered in that way? Really I can't see the point in trying to bring as much things as possibile inside this strange "Start menu" that finally we should call "the universe" since it has all the world in it, in few pixels... a collage of functions, icons, documents, information about users, settings and so on... and we should call it "simple"? it's not simple at all... the right place to arrange things is on the Desktop! the whole Desktop! not on a single all-in-one window that you call "Start menu", but perhaps should be called "Mess menu".

sometime simple is better, but that might not be true for desktop users. If a tool is too simple, then the difficulty might be burdened on the users. Users might have to do much extra work to make simple tools work together.

Yes... but we're not talking about tools or applications here! try to think in practice... about Desktop Users... what is the "extra work" in not having the "mess menu"? find a thing that is less accessible or require "extra work" that cannot be done more clearly in gnome-panel instead of in this "mess menu".
I don't understand why you think we should not use the whole desktop, with it's powerful gnome-panel, to accomplish all the work that you're planning to do in this sort of "menu" (that is not really a menu).
Why collapse all the work of the Desktop in a menu?
If you're feeling the need to have a simplified interface to Desktop functionality, then you should re-invent a Desktop interface, not create a "mess menu"... look at this for example:
http://www.canonical.com/projects/ubuntu/nbr
... but I agree with Karoliina "Don't think what has been done, think what has not been done, that
could be better".
Don't give a solution and then try to create a problem (that doesn't exist) and that is solved by the solution you provided...
Thing about a problem a find a solution, something different, something new, something better! Think different!



 
2008/10/28 Daniele Levorato <daniele levorato infocamere it>
Il giorno mer, 22/10/2008 alle 20.42 +0800, Long Gao ha scritto:
In fact, the real reason why I implemented this start menu is to use a widget of GtkWindow to make a start menu more powerful,


... more powerful... I think it's not more powerful. It just mixes different concepts that Gnome menu is able to differentiate and so be more clear.
Remember that the gnome philosophy is "less is more" and this is the case!

Frequently used applications? ... fewer clicks to achieve a certain "point" in places or applications menu? A way to quickly see which user is logged? the Gnome Panel is there, with it's menu and it's applets! nothing you can't do or can't present clearly to the user. Never saw something more versatile in Windows.

In you very first post you said that you "always found puzzled of thinking which menu to click when I want to do something"... but you really can't tell if you have to go to "Applications" "Places" or "System"? really? In my opinion it's not true! it's really clear instead, as I could see from my user testing experience. While it's not clear what a "Start" button is! You find yourself very comfortable with that sort of thing just because you "already know it"... perhaps you "come from Windows" I think...
Unluckily, many users are "affected" badly by their first experience with Windows and expect every system to work like that (I'm talking in general, not about you... just what I saw in my user experience)...

I wish that a well structured "menu" could provide more functionality.
No, in my opinion a well structured menu is the menu that have only the functionality it is intended to, and not "more". For example It's better to leverage the huge horizontal space to have single menus, one of them is "Applications" that dials only with Applications. It's clear. It's simple. It's usability...


 
From the point of my view, I always want to find some good ideas from Windows, which I thought was totally a mistake:). The start menu might be a difference.


It's good to take ideas from other Desktops, as long as they don't break any copyright ;-)
Copying the "idea" (if we can call it so) of Windows main menu is not a good idea in my opinion. I think that some people wants it just because "they're used to it". I had many experiences in this sense: many users want to keep an old applications UI (even if it's absolutely wrong), just because it is part of their knowledge, and they feel "changes" as bad things, somehow like start learning again from the beginnings.
But take a "fresh" (uncompromised) user... it will find Gnome menu very intuitive, and Windows menu something "really strange".

In my opinion we should not make Gnome be like Windows, just to make users more comfortable to switch their Desktop. Leave this to KDE ;-) (joking)
Sometimes there's the need to innovate, to follow paths that the others don't follow, to reach results that the others don't reach...
This is the path that I think gnome is following... and that Apple summarize with it's "think different" moto. 


_______________________________________________
Usability mailing list
Usability gnome org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability



Ing. D a n i e l e  L e v o r a t o
InfoCamere S.c.p.A
049/8288681
System Engineer
Direzione Registro Imprese
Team Middleware 

_______________________________________________
Usability mailing list
Usability gnome org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability


Ing. D a n i e l e  L e v o r a t o
InfoCamere S.c.p.A
049/8288681
System Engineer
Direzione Registro Imprese
Team Middleware
[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Thread Index] [Date Index] [Author Index]