Re: [Usability] Usability Digest, Vol 60, Issue 7

[Anton Kerezov <ankere gmail com>]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 3:17 AM, Jacob Beauregard <deadowlsurvivor gmail com> wrote:

That is one of the most impressive mockups I have ever seen.

Thank you!

 

The other concern would be Ctrl+key shortcut visibility. I know the GIMP
places Ctrl+key shortcuts in tooltips. However, I question the overall
usability of tooltips, particularly because of their delay which, in
extension, increases the power-user learning curve.

I think that it may be solved by showing smth like tooltips or notifications but below each item. That action will be triggered on demand by the user by specific key combination. Consequently the shortcuts won't be visible unless you want to see them or you mouse over the particular item. Also a quck help popup+search with all shortcuts may be show. This is smth like blender's help and when you get used to the shortcuts you will work much faster.

 

Besides this, the other concern would be apps that use menus and
traditionally present short widths (Empathy or Pidgin, for instance), OR
have unreasonably long menus or unreasonably long-worded menu options
which would be not so much in GNOME, but apps that are distributed
alongside GNOME.

That is a big concern indeed. There are several ways to solve this non of which is best I think and you could give your propolsals here:
 
-> When there is not enough space hide the text of items that have icon but that will result in inconsitancy with the rest of the items
-> Show only most used items from a submenu like Microsoft office (but determined by smather alghorithm) and show unused ones in dropdown menu or smth like that.
-> Show indication that not all items are shown and when the mouse is over the menubar is extended beyond the borders of the window to show all of them. What happens if there is not enough space on the right?
-> Shrink the main item (e.g. Format in the example) to only the first three letters to save space. Make use talk strange after an year :)
-> .... your idea?


Anton