Hi Matthew,
I think I see the whole greying out versus appearing / disappearing
UI elements a little differently.
I find greying out to be more useful if there are location-memory
issues to consider. e.g. I know I always choose the 2nd option from
the right. When there are location-memory issues, greying out helps
to keep the user oriented.
Otherwise, disappearing / appearing feels like the best option
because it simplifies the UI.
In this particular case (disappearing / appearing time zone picker),
I don't think there are really location-memory issues. I think the
natural variation in layout in the Detail View create visual
groupings that the user will use to locate date/time fields versus
addressing fields. So the user won't really be looking for a
particular field (e.g. Recurrence Rule) as say the 8th row down from
the top. In that case, disappearing / appearing the timezone selector
doesn't seem like a big deal from a location-memory standpoint?
(All of this is of course assuming that the user experience is set up
in a way that makes it easy for users to see what caused the UI
element in question to disappear / appear. Again, in this particular
case, I think it will be hard for users to miss the cause-effect
relationship because the cause and effect both take place in the same
user focus area: the Detail View.)
Let me know if that was totally confusing ;o)
Mimi
On Apr 16, 2007, at 5:01 PM, Matthew Eernisse wrote:
**Proposal:**
In 0.7, the form elements in the detail view will appear/disappear
dynamically according to what the item is, ie. address fields will
appear/disappear in the detail view by using the communication stamp.
In this particular case, I side with Sheila's recommendation to
eliminate the time zone drop down list when the 'All day' check
box is checked. (Opposed to displaying something which looks
enabled, when it's really not.)
I think if the stamp changes, it makes sense for whole sections to
appear and disappear, but I think in general when a single
attribute (like timezone) is not applicable, disabling it is a much
better approach than making it go away completely -- provided you
get the proper visual cues that the element is not active.
Seriously, disabling form elements and buttons is a very standard
thing to expect to be able to do -- and if we can't reliably do
that on all our supported platforms, that seems to me to point to a
bigger problem.
Shouldn't we consider trying to fix that first?
Matthew
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Open Source Applications Foundation "Design" mailing list
http://lists.osafoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/design
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Open Source Applications Foundation "Design" mailing list
http://lists.osafoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/design
