Just another nod to Katy -- it turns out the guys at Humanized have described what I was envisioning in great detail. (I found this via the UIPatternLibrary.)
In case anyone else is looking for this kind of thing in the future, instead of HUDs they call them simply "transparent messages". The full write-up is here: http://humanized.com/weblog/2006/09/11/monolog_boxes_and_transparent_mes sages/ Unlike my original plan, which was to have the message fade after a certain elapsed time (say, 2 seconds), theirs actually fade when the user either moves their mouse or clicks. I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of this approach, because the user could miss the message entirely if they happen to be moving their mouse when the message appears. I think I will try: - A minimum of 1 second showing, even if the user is currently moving their mouse (the 1 second is a guess -- will play with the exact duration) - After 1 second, showing the message on the screen as long as the user isn't moving their mouse I'd love to hear any thoughts about this proposed approach. Meredith ________________________________________________________________ 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
