Re: [Usability] Rhythmbox: Why does unpressing play feel so awkward when you want to pause the music?

[Jacob Beauregard <deadowlsurvivor gmail com>]

Calum Benson wrote:
> On 5 Sep 2008, at 19:26, Jacob Beauregard wrote:
>
> > Could my prior use of other media players seriously be this deeply 
> > ingrained in my head? I'm doubtful. What are the other possibilities?
>
> Donald Norman would describe what you're experiencing in terms of "the 
> gulf of execution"[1]. Your goal is to pause (or stop) the music, so 
> your gut reaction is to look for a pause/stop button. But there isn't 
> one, so the gulf is widened.
Yes, there's a gulf of execution. The gulf of execution, however, is 
likely a macro-phenomenon. The existence of only one study on the gulf 
of execution also shows that there isn't much support to make broad 
generalizations based on examples of the phenomenon. I've learned to 
unpress the play button. It isn't significantly faster or slower than 
with using past media players. I'm citing a degree of awkwardness.
> Partly this probably is due to your past experience with other media 
> players, but most likely also with GUIs generally-- GUIs tend to 
> represent actions as buttons; binary toggles are normally reserved for 
> settings and properties. What do you do when you want to stop other 
> continuous operations, like a file transfer or a print job? You press 
> the "Stop" (or "Cancel") button, you don't un-press the Start button :)
>
> Cheeri,
> Calum.