Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: > On Jan 10, 2007, at 3:39 AM, Calum Benson wrote: >> - If you have separate play and pause (and/or stop) buttons, it should >> be immediately obvious to anyone who knows what play, pause (and/or >> stop) mean how they're going to behave. If you only have a play >> button, you can't really tell what it's going to do until you press >> it. (Will it turn into a Pause button? A stop button? Will it stay >> pressed in, or pop back out?) > > At this point, people's experience with most software media players > from the past ten years (whether Windows, Mac, or Linux), combined with > the absence of any other nearby pause/stop button, should make it > obvious that Play will be a toggle.
It seems to me that visual clues can be used to show people what the button will do. For instance, the case of play/pause, perhaps it's enough that when the mouse runs over the play button it morphs into a pause button. I'm not sure I buy the idea of buttons pressing in and popping out on 2D interfaces. Colour might be a better indicator. Even something as simple as the button becoming white instead of gray would make it clear which button is active, and perhaps when paused the button could assume a light gray shade. Regards Shane -- Shane Coughlan FTF Coordinator Free Software Foundation Europe +41435000366 ext 408 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support Free Software > http://fsfe.org _______________________________________________ Usability mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability
