Hi Priscilla,
See comments in-line...
On Feb 21, 2006, at 10:50 AM, Mimi Yin wrote:
Priscilla: Yes absolutely. Could you elaborate on the specific
steps you took to try and delete the collection? This is a really
interesting scenario.
So when I click on a collection or two (see visual attached). The
first this I want to do is right click to delete. Currently it does
not do that in Chandler 0.6.1.So then I go under the edit menu and
the 'delete' is grey-ed out.
Then I only select one collection, go under the edit menu and see
'delete collection'.
Yes, it sounds like you probably wouldn't have gotten all the way to
the point where you associated "check selection" with "delete
collection" if 1) there was a context menu and 2) the menu items
refreshed quickly enough to allow you to delete the selected
collection (without checking it).
Heh, I tried the eye as well, and I gave up because I couldn't get
it to look right (as in same illustration style as the collection
icons - they all looked like Lisa Simpson), but that's not a good
reason to not use the concept! It's just hard. ;o)
I also tried using a thumb-tack. It might communicate "stuckness"
or "persistent selection" even better than an eye? In reality,
selecting a collection is "viewing it". "Checking it off" is
"viewing it forever"...or at least until you decide to "uncheck"
it again.
Yup. coming up with visually appealing icons is a full time job in
itself. I can help to re-explore and draw up some icons with
you....and hopefully in time find some contributors who are
interested in coming up with visually appealing icon set that makes
sense??? ; )
Huh, that's a good idea. But might feel weird in more complicated
scenarios. (ie. I have 1 collection "checked off", and 1
collection NOT "checked off", but selected.)
Think of how you use the palettes in photoshop. Something can be
visible, not visible, but still selected? Well in any case, this
might be something to put in-front of users to see how complicated
it is to understand. (Visual: I can still select even though it's
unchecked, is this not the same 'weird' behavior you're talking
about?)
-Priscilla
I think the difference here is that in Photoshop, when you "select" a
layer, the layer doesn't appear. In Chandler, if you select a
collection, the collection appears. In Chandler, clicking on the
collection icon makes the selection stick OR makes its appearance
persistent. Which means, you have to click the collection icon again
in order to make it disappear. As in, the collection won't disappear
if you just select a different collection. The usual icon for this
kind of behavior is usually a checkbox.
I'm proposing that as a first test, we test an out of the box
configuration that shows 2 checked collections and 1 un-checked
collection (with no tweaks to the visuals)...I have a feeling that
regardless of what icon we have, it will be hard for users to
understand the difference between "selection" and "stuck selection",
if they're only playing around with a single collection that has items.
I guess this is a really long-winded way of saying that before we
spend more time on refining the icon, I'd like to do a controlled
experiment to see if having multiple collections is a key factor in
understanding the distinction between "selected collection" and
"checked collection".
It seems like at least some people are able to see the rollover
effect and try clicking on it as a result. The problem seems to arise
when "nothing new" happens as a result of checking the collection,
thereby breaking the all-important cause-and-effect feedback loop
that is crucial to the process of building a coherent end-user mental
model of an app's "laws of physics", so-to-speak.
===
However, the weirdness I was referring to has to do with using the
checkboxes to multi-select collections and then "delete" them all in
one stroke. It may be strange to have 1 collection selected, and then
end up deleting 3 collections because 2 other collections were checked.
Automatically 'selecting' all checked collections would mean finding
another way to visually distinguish between the 'selected' collection
(ie. the calendar that's on top) versus simply 'activated or checked
collections'.
Mimi :o)
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