Here's another context. The Nokia Series 60 UI Style Guide (from
2005) touches on this issue and prohibits the dimming of unavailable
menu items. They outline the rationale for hiding or erroring instead
and allow for either, depending on the situation.
// jeff
6.6.2 Unavailable Items
Situations often occur where a certain function cannot be used. In
these cases, the corresponding items in the Options menu must either
be hidden, or there must be an error message given when the user
tries to access a function that cannot be accomplished. The Series 60
user interface does not use dimming of menu items.
This is a trade-off issue: removing unnecessary options makes the
Options menus shorter, but at the same time it changes the menu from
situation to situation, preventing users from learning the function
locations. It may even cause frustration if the users expect some
function to be found in the menu, but it is sometimes not there.
* In case the user has no reason to search for a certain function in
the given situation, it should be hidden. As an extreme example, the
Delete option is not needed when there are no items to be deleted.
* If the user searches for a function, even though it cannot be used
in the current situation, it is often better to display the option
and give an appropriate message if the user tries to access that
function.
An example of this is Digital Rights Management (DRM) protected
files: for example, sending commands shall be visible in the user
interface although sending such a file would not be allowed.
Appropriate DRM specific notifications are displayed if the user
attempts to select one of the options that the user is not allowed to
perform on DRM protected media objects. This is to facilitate end-
user’s learning of the DRM concept.
________________________________________________________________
Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
