Re: [Usability] Usability problems with the new fullscreen mode for cheese!

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

On 3 Sep 2008, at 08:48, Felix Kaser wrote:

> In the first mode (preview) the bar overlays a little bit of the  
> preview video, but thats not that bad, because its just some 5% of  
> the image! The problem is the second mode (effects chooser), there  
> the bar overlays a set of buttons (the last row of effect buttons).  
> To not bother the user with the bar too much in the effects mode we  
> set the timeout (when the bar disappears) to 1sec or less, so you  
> see the bar only if you move the mouse to the bottom of the screen  
> and remain on the bar! when you move the bar away from the bar it  
> disappears immediately! The timeout for the bar in the preview mode  
> is set to 5sec, thats similar to other applications like eog and so  
> on!
>
> So after the long story: do you think its better to have 2 different  
> ways of doing this or its better to have kind of a trade-off and use  
> one timeout for both modes? That means overlaying the last row of  
> effects buttons for some 2, 3sec....


I think there are probably more issues with this design than just the  
timeouts (such as the lack of any visual cue that the bar exists at  
all-- I'm running 2.23.91 and couldn't find it for a good 15-20  
minutes after I read your email.)

But those aside, the best people to ask are your users.  If they find  
that having separate timeouts is more comfortable than a single  
timeout, then you should take that into consideration when making the  
decision.  There's no inherent usability reason to use the same  
timeout in both situations.

I think you also need to consider the accessibility implications of  
your design, though.  Any GUI that employs a timeout is a potential  
concern if there's no way to adjust it.  In that sense, having a  
single timeout would probably make it slightly easier to provide a  
suitable preference.

Actions that rely on mouseover events are probably an even bigger  
accessibility issue.  How do I make the bar stay/re-appear on the  
screen if I'm not using a mouse?

Cheeri,
Calum.

--
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            GNOME Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum             +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems