On Mon, 2007-01-01 at 23:20 -0500, Jacob Beauregard wrote: > My least favorite experience with trying ubuntu was trying > to browse through all of the preferences. Every last thing that > controlled the visual experience and display of information was a > separate choice on a drop-down menu, that each opened a new window. For > first time users, I imagine this can be very very frustrating.
I think the key phrase there is "first-time" users. The first time you use the desktop is indeed the time you are most likely to want to browse/change a whole lot of preferences at once, and the menu is sub-optimal for that. You'll be glad to know (if you didn't already) that all the preferences will be available to browse in a single Windows/OSX-like control center shell, in 2.18. On the other hand, the menu /is/ generally more efficient for the long-term user's more common task, which is to occasionally tweak one setting in one preferences window. (Provided they know in which window that setting lives, admittedly-- something else which the shell should help them to learn, as it has a search facility.) Personally I hope the new control center shell doesn't mean the menus are done away with altogether, though, because (as a long term user) I find the menus much more convenient. Despite having used it for years, I can never find what I'm looking for in the OS X control center nearly as quickly-- I tend to use the menu in the dock instead, when I remember it exists. > Using tabs/frames to a desktop environment rather than windows. > This would be a step to optimize the navigation between different > applications by a user. > Frames are most optimal for multitasking and tabs are most optimal for > navigating between tasks. > I would love being able to use tabs to navigate between different > applications. I would also love being able to use frames while using > multiple applications at the same time. The implementation of tabs would > probably be much easier than the implementation of frames in regards to > mobility. Framed/paned window managers do exist (or certainly used to), I was briefly involved in usability testing one a long time ago. The main complaint from users was the inability to size each pane optimally, as resizing one pane often adversely affected the dimensions of another. Consequently, some users felt they were wasting more of their desktop space-- which wasn't actually true, for those that weren't making any use of the desktop background previously. There were just more large "white" areas in some panes, where previously there would have been desktop background, so the "wastage" was much more noticeable, and negatively affected their impressions of the interface. Others just tried to squeeze as many panes onto the desktop as they would previously have had (overlapping) windows, which meant each pane was smaller than the corresponding window they were used to. So they ended up complaining about the amount of extra scrolling they had to do-- another sub-optimal user experience. It's possible that both types of user would have learned to adapt over time, of course, the study didn't look into that. All that said, the GNOME usability team /have/ always advocated the development of a window manager with tabbing capabilities, that would (in addition to the current metacity functionality) let you group any arbitrary collection of top level windows into a single, tabbed window. This was the thinking behind the HIG's much-maligned "don't implement tabbed MDI applications" stance. It's not that tabs aren't useful in some cases, but that their implementation would be best handled by the appropriate application-- the window manager-- rather than being re-implemented in every application that wants to use them. (And thus, equally, denying the user that functionality in applications that don't want to.) Doesn't look like we're going to get such a window manager anytime soon though, people are too busy implementing wobbly translucent windows and spinny-cube desktop switchers at the moment. But who knows what GNOME 3.0 will bring? :) Cheeri, Calum. -- CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer Sun Microsystems Ireland mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Java Desktop System Group http://ie.sun.com +353 1 819 9771 Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems _______________________________________________ Usability mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability
