On 7 Jan 2006 at 8:22, dhbailey wrote: > Brad Beyenhof wrote: > > > On 1/6/06, David W. Fenton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >>On 6 Jan 2006 at 14:04, Brad Beyenhof wrote: > >> > >>>On 1/6/06, David W. Fenton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>> > >>> > >>>>And it seems to me that there oughtn't be any reason not to have > >>>>such a menu choice in both locations. > >>> > >>>But if you follow that logic to its conclusion, you'll put > >>>discovery paths to each dialog in multiple locations that might > >>>seem equally useful. With every feature accessible from multiple > >>>places, there will be so many choices that *nothing* will be easy > >>>to find! > >> > >>I don't get it. > > > > I'm just saying that including a feature at multiple points in the > > menus will add to the number of choices in those menus, therefore > > requiring the user to look through more menu options while attemptng > > to find the desired function. > > > >>Have you ever written software? Or designed a web page? > > > > I've not actually written software, but I've developed it (and left > > the actual coding to those who knew the language). And I've written > > a few simple web pages. > > > >>Actually, that latter is a good one. > >> > >>Consider a CONTACT link on a web page. Most websites put it on every > >>single page, and the link goes to a single page. Is that confusing? > >>Of course not! What would be confusing was if you could only get to > >>the CONTACT page by navigating to a single one of the many pages on > >>a website. > > > > Yes, but the CONTACT link is generally in the same place on each > > page. The user can find it easily, and does not have to wade through > > a different group of options on each page to discover it. > > And it's not called CONTACT on one page and DISCUSS IT WITH US on > another page and DIRECT LINK on a third page and CORRESPONDENCE OR > TELEPHONE INFORMATION on a fourth page. It's called CONTACT > everywhere it's mentioned in a web-site, whether it's a single page > that's hard to find or every page. > > So to carry David Fenton's analogy over to Finale, he'd find the same > confusing TRANSPOSE label under Canonic Utilitis and Mass Mover and > Edit and every other menu he might think of to place his > "double-at-a-specific-interval-on-the-same-staff" feature. And if he > didn't consider what he wanted to be "TRANSPOSE" he'd still miss it. > He'd just have more places to miss it. What he's asking for is > different labels for the same feature, and placing those different > labels in different locations. Which would be incredibly bad web-site > design.
Please -- let *me* define exactly what it is that I'm saying. The web page CONTACT example was a response to the assertion that it was bad to have multiple paths to the same functionality, and shows quite clearly that it is quite appropriate to choose to provide more than one path, and not at all confusing to the user. Secondly, in regard to Finale, I am *not* asking that the feature be called different things in different contexts, nor that it be accessible everywhere. I'm asking for something much more complicated: that it be available in all the places where it is appropriate for it to be available, and that those places be chosen logically from a musical point of view. That's not something that's either easy to explain or easy to implement -- if it were easy, then there wouldn't be any such UI problems in Finale. If the choices were simple, there wouldn't be any complexities. You have reduced my argument to something that has nothing whatsoever to do with anything I've said. We usually call that setting up a straw man. It's generally considered a less than honorable debating tactic. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
