Re: [Usability] Zoom Controls

[Calum Benson <calum benson oracle com>]

On 21/04/2010 11:44, Allan Day wrote:

> Apologies in advance for the long email. Feel free to skip the analysis
> and jump to the second half to see my suggestions...
>
> I've been thinking a bit about zoom controls recently, particularly in
> relation to Eye of GNOME. I think we can do better in this area.

See also Federico's write-up about zooming from a couple of years ago: 
<http://live.gnome.org/User%20Interface%20Patterns/Zooming>

Coincidentally, yesterday I was trying to munge Federico's ideas into 
the UI Pattern Template I've been working on-- primarily to continue to 
exercise the template rather than suggest a concrete design for zoom 
controls, so I'm not saying the pattern I came up with is particularly 
valid-- I do still show the zoom in terms of percentage, for example. 
But just for the record, here's where I got to (some sections incomplete):
<http://live.gnome.org/UsabilityProject/HIG/ImageZoomExamplePattern>

I mentioned on IRC yesterday that I think there are actually probably a 
couple of different use cases here-- the one where the bounds of the 
allowable zooming are practically infinite (e.g. a vector graphics 
editor), and one where you could sensibly define them for most use cases 
(e.g. a document editor/viewer, where the lower bound might be 'until 
you can see two pages side-by-side', and the upper bound might be 
somewhat below the magnification at which a 12pt glyph fills the window. 
Or a file manager window with thumbnails, which are only really useful 
when they're not too small to see, and not too big that they're bigger 
than the window.)

In the 'defined bounds' case, I think providing a slider can still be 
useful, and I do quite like the way OpenOffice's zoom slider works, with 
a couple of 'magnetic' points along the way for 'fit width' and 'fit to 
window'.  Where the bounds are large, having the slider behave in some 
sort of exponential fashion might also be an option, although that would 
probably need some tinkering to make it feel right and work well.

Cheeri,
Calum.

--
CALUM BENSON, Interaction Designer     Oracle Corporation, Ireland
mailto:calum.benson at oracle.com      Solaris Desktop Group
http://blogs.sun.com/calum             +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Oracle Corp.