Re: [Usability] New Menubars

[Anton Kerezov <ankere gmail com>]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 6:56 PM, Diego Moya <turingt gmail com> wrote:

Hi Anton,

2009/4/14 Anton Kerezov <ankere gmail com>:

If you're interested in user workflow, it's good to see how others
have approached a similar problem from different perspectives.

I will definitely investigate more on this issue.

 

Notice that when you allow users to type the first letters of a
command, it looks more and more like a Command Line Interface. Your
idea extends naturally to create a whole support for commands, not
just for displaying them but for introducing parameters and showing
immediate feedback (autocomplete, suggestions, preview results...)

Yes probably a CLI-like but you will be able to use the mouse or your fingers if you have touch screen.

 

I'd like to point you to the approach taken by the Ubiquity project (see:

 http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/08/introducing-ubiquity/

), which in turn takes ideas from Quicksilver and Launchbar. They try
to make a usable CLI with a visual treatment that very much resembles
your mockup, just with a more generalized reach. 

They solve many of the usability problems found in traditional CLIs,
although they don't tackle your stated problem of trying to retrieve
recently used commands and store them in a "visual cache". The
solution to this problem found in your proposal is a nice feature, and
it could be a good improvement over a complete CLI system for the
Gnome Shell built following the Ubiquity and Quicksilver models.

My point for doing this is not to make a cache for recently used items but to show submenus the user is interested  in like normal menubars but with icons and extended support for previews for sub-sub menus. But your idea for visual history of most used items is good and I think that it can be done and in the end when some simple AI investigates your actions after a mont or so it will be able to present you a list of your most valuable and used commands.

Anton