Daniel Carrera wrote: > Mathias Bauer wrote: > >> Sorry, but people that don't understand checkboxes shouldn't try to work >> with an application like OOo. They will never get it to work. Or are you >> opting for such explanations in all check boxes in the program? > > Come on Mathias. If the instructions are broken, you can't blame it on the > user and say they "don't understand checkboxes". That's silly.
Maybe we are talking about different things here. I'm not against changing the text of a dialog if it is not understandable (though I still doubt that this is the case here, I can't see that "the instructions are broken"). But explaining to the user what checking and unchecking of checkboxed means is ridiculous. We would end up with explaining every checkbox in the program: "if box is checked, you will get this, if box is not checked, you get that". Yes, every checkbox. Why should users understand other checkboxes if they don't understand those in the setup? Sorry, but that makes the concept of checkboxes useless and you are better off with radio buttons, though that needs twice the screen space) If you want to declare the whole concept of checkboxes broken, I will not follow that path. The checkboxes in the dialog we are talking about are by no means different to others in OOo or other programs. Moreover, nearly every graphic viewer I know has a similar configuration dialog where you have text at the top that says: "use xxx as a viewer for:" followed by several checkboxes, each for a specific graphical format. I never heard that this poses a problem to the common user. > Now, I agree that in this particular instance the issue is not as big. I > think most people will interpret the checkboxes correctly. But I still > think that the POV you just presented is not the best. Yes, my reaction was a little bit harsh, but I still believe that it was basically right. Of course there might be users that don't understand checkboxes. Other users don't understand what a selection cursor is or a toolbar, a context menu etc. Those are basic concepts of modern computer software a user should know before using the computer. Or they should learn them *while* using the computer, f.e. by using tutorial programs of the operating system or similar things. If you start to explain one of those basic concepts in an *application* program, where do you want to stop? It's not up to a single program to explain basic computer usage patterns in an isolated case. Users will see the same things in other programs just because those concepts are so basic nowadays. Best regards, Mathias -- Mathias Bauer - OpenOffice.org Application Framework Project Lead Please reply to the list only, [EMAIL PROTECTED] is a spam sink. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
