On May 17, 2007, at 4:36 AM, Thorsten Wilms wrote: > > On Wed, May 16, 2007 at 09:52:15AM -0500, Shaun McCance wrote: > ... >> I'm using Clearlooks, the default theme in upstream Gnome. When >> I hover over the label of a radio button or check box, the entire >> clickable area prelights. As you mouse your way towards the box, >> you'll see the prelight and, hopefully, realize you can click. > > Prelighting offers visual indication on mouse-over, but prior to > that there is no visual indication. > ...
Exactly. To put it another way: mouseover effects are feedback you don't get until just after you need it. One thing that makes Mac OS X elegant and relaxing to use, compared with Windows, Gnome, or KDE, is that its controls (apart from the Dock gimmick) almost never have mouseover effects. Controls either have outlines, or they don't. The "✕ - +" symbols that appear when hovering over OS X's title bar buttons are the mistake that proves the rule: they'd work much better if they were visible all the time. So if anything is done to make checkbox, radiobutton, and disclosure triangle labels more obviously clickable, I think it should be something that is always visible. Cheers -- Matthew Paul Thomas http://mpt.net.nz/ _______________________________________________ Usability mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability
