Re: Principles for User-Interface Design

[Dave Cragg]

On 23 Jun 2005, at 09:43, Martin Baxter wrote:


Marielle Lange wrote:

Let's not start some arguing. Simple question: how many of you  
swear at your

computer. What platform are you using? If you happen to use different
platforms, how often do you swear when using each one of them




Right, few things are more boring than platform wars. I can  
honestly say that I swear at all my computers regularly, every day  
(24/7/365 - I take a day off in leap years) I swear at them for  
different reasons, but I detest them all equally.


Once upon a time I had one computer and we had a mutually- 
supportive love affair and we were faithful to one another. But we  
grew old. Now I have a computer for every day of the week and they  
are all cheating on me behind my back. They are always dialling  
some server I know nothing about (and talking dirty I suspect).  
Sometimes they won't let me in without a password, and other times  
they just won't communicate with me in any way at all. Computers  
are from Venus, Men are from the funny-farm.




I see you lead an interesting life, Martin. :)

I also dislike all my computers, but it's nothing compared to my  
feelings for printers.


Cheers
Dave
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Re: Principles for User-Interface Design

[Martin Baxter]

Marielle Lange wrote:

Let's not start some arguing. Simple question: how many of you swear at your
computer. What platform are you using? If you happen to use different
platforms, how often do you swear when using each one of them



Right, few things are more boring than platform wars. I can honestly say 
that I swear at all my computers regularly, every day (24/7/365 - I take 
a day off in leap years) I swear at them for different reasons, but I 
detest them all equally.


Once upon a time I had one computer and we had a mutually-supportive 
love affair and we were faithful to one another. But we grew old. Now I 
have a computer for every day of the week and they are all cheating on 
me behind my back. They are always dialling some server I know nothing 
about (and talking dirty I suspect). Sometimes they won't let me in 
without a password, and other times they just won't communicate with me 
in any way at all. Computers are from Venus, Men are from the funny-farm.


Martin Baxter

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Re: Principles for User-Interface Design

[Dennis Brown]

I know what you mean.  I keep trying to use a PC (I have one).  I  
turn it on every year and try to run some applications.  They run.  I  
try to use it in a normal way, but by the end of the day, I unplug it  
again with a sigh of relief, and push it under the table next to my  
Mac.  I have not thrown it out, because I keep having the feeling  
that someday I will want to run a special program that is not cross  
platform.  That is why I plug it in again every so often, but then I  
decide it is just not worth the aggravation and I find another way of  
solving my problem.  Perhaps write it in Rev.


Yes, the tool does make a difference...

Dennis

On Jun 22, 2005, at 6:24 PM, Marielle Lange wrote:


...and not just user-configurable UIs, but also the... um... I forget
what Microsoft calls it, but it's the thing where the menus have the
most recently-used items rearranged on the fly by default.





Kids - don't try this at home. These are clowns^H^H^H^HMicrosoft
engineers at work designing your user experience.




Apologizes in advance to all PC users on this list. I had to use a  
PC to help a
student set up an experiment this week... I had a very hard time  
keeping up
from swearing. You know, all these little things that get you  
exclaim, "he
that's clever" on one platform and "bloody hell, stop taking all  
these stupid

decisions". (I let you guess which comment applies to which platform)

Let's not start some arguing. Simple question: how many of you  
swear at your

computer. What platform are you using? If you happen to use different
platforms, how often do you swear when using each one of them

In case you do it often, why not introduce a bit of diversity and  
try "'Wretch',
'Beast', 'Swine', 'Jellyfish', 'Ectoplasm', 'Freshwater swab',  
'Bashi-bazouk',
'Caterpillar', 'Baboon', 'Parasite', 'Disgraceful', 'Treason',  
'Twister',
'Heretic', 'Technocrat', 'Hydrocarbon', 'Anthracite', 'Coconut',  
'Fuzzy-wuzzy',
'Anthropithecus', 'Black bird', 'Nincompoop', 'Anacoluthon',  
'Invertebrate',
'Liquorice' (from: http://www.angelfire.com/super2/animorphs/ 
insult.html ;-) ).





The rev-ed wiki is at: 

There is some information (work in progress, mostly parts of John  
Mathewson's
MSc thesis) about user-interface elements and guidelines, along  
with a few

links
.

Really, feel free to update and improve the content.

Links to Both apple and microsoft guidelines can be found there,  
along with the

ones of other platforms and environments.

For a quick read, I recommend

Ten Usability Heuristics by Jakob Nielsen.


Cheers,
Marielle
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Re: Principles for User-Interface Design

[Alex Tweedly]

Judy Perry wrote:


Al:

It sux bigtime!!!

I remember once I was teaching the "how to turn your computer on" class on
the PC platform and some CS major decided it would be cute to reprogram
the left-right mouse buttons to their opposite.

I can't begin to tell you how much fun that was.  Happened periodically
that term.
 


I know what you mean.
I used to work on a CAD graphics editing program. Some bright spark 
thought it would be funny to write a program that would roam around the 
network until it found a machine running the program, take over the 
whole screen, find where the buttons were, and then program it such that 
(sometimes) when you tried to click on a button, the button would 
"squirt" out from under the mouse, and scoot across the screen away from 
you  slowing down a bit until the cursor got near when it would 
speed up again and go in a different direction.


That was a big fad for a month or two, but then it became "old hat"; so 
next was the "melting screen" problem. The windows (esp near the top of 
the screen) would start to slowly "melt" - the borders would droop 
slightly, drips would form on the bottom corners, then the interiors 
would randomly and unevenly slide down, looking just like the windows 
had been painted on and the paint was running.


Then there was the "paratrooper" - he'd drop down from the top of the 
screen, "land" on the bottom, then march off to the right - pushing in 
front of him any windows he found low enough on the screen.


That was the week we disconnected the customer demonstration rooms from 
the development part of the network 



--
Alex Tweedly   http://www.tweedly.net



--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
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Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.7.8/22 - Release Date: 17/06/2005

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Re: Principles for User-Interface Design

[Judy Perry]

Al:

It sux bigtime!!!

I remember once I was teaching the "how to turn your computer on" class on
the PC platform and some CS major decided it would be cute to reprogram
the left-right mouse buttons to their opposite.

I can't begin to tell you how much fun that was.  Happened periodically
that term.

As for Macromedia's, er, now Adobe's I guess, UI, all I can say is that

(a) It's bad;
(b) It's not possible to have a display that is big enough to handle its
bloat; and,
(c) It's really bad.

Misery loves company...

Judy

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005, Alejandro Tejada wrote:

> Have you see how "configurable" is the
> interface of Macromedia FreeHand MX?
>
> In the computer classroom, last week, i noticed
> the most bizarre behavior from FreeHand MX.
> Every student "done" and "undone" the MX interface
> at will, so in the end, i had to spend the first
> 15 minutes every day to return FreeHand to the
> state of the previous day.
> And some days, it was necessary to reinstall the
> program, to revert all changes... :-(
>

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Re: Principles for User-Interface Design

[Marielle Lange]

>...and not just user-configurable UIs, but also the... um... I forget
>what Microsoft calls it, but it's the thing where the menus have the
>most recently-used items rearranged on the fly by default.

>Kids - don't try this at home. These are clowns^H^H^H^HMicrosoft
>engineers at work designing your user experience.


Apologizes in advance to all PC users on this list. I had to use a PC to help a
student set up an experiment this week... I had a very hard time keeping up
from swearing. You know, all these little things that get you exclaim, "he
that's clever" on one platform and "bloody hell, stop taking all these stupid
decisions". (I let you guess which comment applies to which platform)

Let's not start some arguing. Simple question: how many of you swear at your
computer. What platform are you using? If you happen to use different
platforms, how often do you swear when using each one of them

In case you do it often, why not introduce a bit of diversity and try "'Wretch',
'Beast', 'Swine', 'Jellyfish', 'Ectoplasm', 'Freshwater swab', 'Bashi-bazouk',
'Caterpillar', 'Baboon', 'Parasite', 'Disgraceful', 'Treason', 'Twister',
'Heretic', 'Technocrat', 'Hydrocarbon', 'Anthracite', 'Coconut', 'Fuzzy-wuzzy',
'Anthropithecus', 'Black bird', 'Nincompoop', 'Anacoluthon', 'Invertebrate',
'Liquorice' (from: http://www.angelfire.com/super2/animorphs/insult.html ;-) ).




The rev-ed wiki is at: 

There is some information (work in progress, mostly parts of John Mathewson's
MSc thesis) about user-interface elements and guidelines, along with a few
links
.
Really, feel free to update and improve the content.

Links to Both apple and microsoft guidelines can be found there, along with the
ones of other platforms and environments.

For a quick read, I recommend

Ten Usability Heuristics by Jakob Nielsen.


Cheers,
Marielle
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Re: Principles for User-Interface Design

[Dan Shafer]

FWIW, I've been a big fan of Raskin's for years but this humane  
interface stuff is just wrong-headed.


"Not implementable" is only where it starts.

Dan

On Jun 22, 2005, at 9:14 AM, Alejandro Tejada wrote:


on Wed, 22 Jun 2005
Jon wrote:



If you want a real kick in the UI pants, check out
the late Jef Raskin's
book called The Humane Interface.  His ideas are
radical enough that
they cannot be implemented in most development
environments, but they
are worth considering.



Hi John,

Thanks for the pointer to the
book of the late Jeff Raskin.

Look John, in their website, they write
about the many difficulties of implementing
their software in multiple platforms...
because the differences in keyboard response:



Very enlightening!

al



Visit my site:
http://www.geocities.com/capellan2000/




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Re: Principles for User-Interface Design

[Alejandro Tejada]

on Wed, 22 Jun 2005 
Judy Perry wrote:

> I especially got a kick out of reading what he had
> to say about
> user-configurable UIs and MS Word 6 for Mac.
> 
> Basically, his take was that user-configurable UIs
> are a TERRIBLE idea
> but, that in the case of Word 6 for Mac, the UI was
> already such a total
> piece of crap that anything that a user could do to
> "screw it up" with
> custom configuration could only be a step up.

Hi Judy,

Have you see how "configurable" is the
interface of Macromedia FreeHand MX?

In the computer classroom, last week, i noticed
the most bizarre behavior from FreeHand MX.
Every student "done" and "undone" the MX interface
at will, so in the end, i had to spend the first
15 minutes every day to return FreeHand to the 
state of the previous day. 
And some days, it was necessary to reinstall the
program, to revert all changes... :-(

I don't know how easy is for other teachers
to cope with this situation in computer labs.

Fortunately, PhotoShop do not allows
this Freedom of GUI, so i do not waste
time returning it to a previous state. :-)

al


Visit my site:
http://www.geocities.com/capellan2000/



 
Yahoo! Sports 
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Re: Principles for User-Interface Design

[Judy Perry]

Mark,

Oh yeah!

I think that the User Interface Hall of Shame even might have had in it
M$'s horrible use of the dancing tabs-on-tabs-on-tabs... they, too, would
rearrange on-the-fly, making them totally unusable.

Judy

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005, Mark Wieder wrote:

> ...and not just user-configurable UIs, but also the... um... I forget
> what Microsoft calls it, but it's the thing where the menus have the
> most recently-used items rearranged on the fly by default.
>
> Kids - don't try this at home. These are clowns^H^H^H^HMicrosoft
> engineers at work designing your user experience.

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Re: Principles for User-Interface Design

[Mark Wieder]

Judy-

Wednesday, June 22, 2005, 10:19:05 AM, you wrote:

JP> I especially got a kick out of reading what he had to say about
JP> user-configurable UIs and MS Word 6 for Mac.

...and not just user-configurable UIs, but also the... um... I forget
what Microsoft calls it, but it's the thing where the menus have the
most recently-used items rearranged on the fly by default.

Kids - don't try this at home. These are clowns^H^H^H^HMicrosoft
engineers at work designing your user experience.

-- 
-Mark Wieder
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: Principles for User-Interface Design

[Thomas McGrath III]

X

positively evil ! ;-)

T

On Jun 22, 2005, at 1:43 PM, MisterX wrote:



"WELL, isn't THAT special?"
 - the church lady from Sat. Night Live ;)

i once called MS support - landed with a Parisian Support
manager- My Applescript with MoftWord return error x. What does
x mean? (x was a number i cant remember).

All i got  was - that's a mac problem not word...

Since then, they dont get any more support issues from me.
I encourage everyone to do the same so they keep the buggiest
software available!

cheers
Xavier


-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Judy Perry
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 19:19
To: How to use Revolution
Subject: Re: Principles for User-Interface Design

I especially got a kick out of reading what he had to say
about user-configurable UIs and MS Word 6 for Mac.

Basically, his take was that user-configurable UIs are a
TERRIBLE idea but, that in the case of Word 6 for Mac, the UI
was already such a total piece of crap that anything that a
user could do to "screw it up" with custom configuration
could only be a step up.

;-)

Judy

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005, Jon wrote:


If you want a real kick in the UI pants, check out the late Jef
Raskin's book called The Humane Interface.  His ideas are radical
enough that they cannot be implemented in most development
environments, but they are worth considering.


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Thomas J. McGrath III
SCS
1000 Killarney Dr.
Pittsburgh, PA 15234
412-885-8541

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RE: Principles for User-Interface Design

[MisterX]

"WELL, isn't THAT special?" 
 - the church lady from Sat. Night Live ;)

i once called MS support - landed with a Parisian Support
manager- My Applescript with MoftWord return error x. What does
x mean? (x was a number i cant remember). 

All i got  was - that's a mac problem not word...

Since then, they dont get any more support issues from me.
I encourage everyone to do the same so they keep the buggiest
software available!

cheers
Xavier

> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of 
> Judy Perry
> Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 19:19
> To: How to use Revolution
> Subject: Re: Principles for User-Interface Design
> 
> I especially got a kick out of reading what he had to say 
> about user-configurable UIs and MS Word 6 for Mac.
> 
> Basically, his take was that user-configurable UIs are a 
> TERRIBLE idea but, that in the case of Word 6 for Mac, the UI 
> was already such a total piece of crap that anything that a 
> user could do to "screw it up" with custom configuration 
> could only be a step up.
> 
> ;-)
> 
> Judy
> 
> On Wed, 22 Jun 2005, Jon wrote:
> 
> > If you want a real kick in the UI pants, check out the late Jef 
> > Raskin's book called The Humane Interface.  His ideas are radical 
> > enough that they cannot be implemented in most development 
> > environments, but they are worth considering.
> 
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Re: Principles for User-Interface Design

[Judy Perry]

I especially got a kick out of reading what he had to say about
user-configurable UIs and MS Word 6 for Mac.

Basically, his take was that user-configurable UIs are a TERRIBLE idea
but, that in the case of Word 6 for Mac, the UI was already such a total
piece of crap that anything that a user could do to "screw it up" with
custom configuration could only be a step up.

;-)

Judy

On Wed, 22 Jun 2005, Jon wrote:

> If you want a real kick in the UI pants, check out the late Jef Raskin's
> book called The Humane Interface.  His ideas are radical enough that
> they cannot be implemented in most development environments, but they
> are worth considering.

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Re: Principles for User-Interface Design

[Alejandro Tejada]

on Wed, 22 Jun 2005 
Jon wrote:

> If you want a real kick in the UI pants, check out
> the late Jef Raskin's 
> book called The Humane Interface.  His ideas are
> radical enough that 
> they cannot be implemented in most development
> environments, but they 
> are worth considering.

Hi John,

Thanks for the pointer to the
book of the late Jeff Raskin.

Look John, in their website, they write
about the many difficulties of implementing
their software in multiple platforms...
because the differences in keyboard response:



Very enlightening!

al



Visit my site:
http://www.geocities.com/capellan2000/



 
Yahoo! Sports 
Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign up for Fantasy Football 
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Re: Principles for User-Interface Design

[Jon]

If you want a real kick in the UI pants, check out the late Jef Raskin's 
book called The Humane Interface.  His ideas are radical enough that 
they cannot be implemented in most development environments, but they 
are worth considering.


:)

Jon


Alejandro Tejada wrote:


Hi Developers,

i found this webpage with an interesting
summary of Principles for designing User
interfaces:



i hope this link will be an useful reference
for developers in this list. :-)

al






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Principles for User-Interface Design

[Alejandro Tejada]

Hi Developers,

i found this webpage with an interesting
summary of Principles for designing User
interfaces:



i hope this link will be an useful reference
for developers in this list. :-)

al






Visit my site:
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Yahoo! Sports 
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