I understand progressive discovery. I find in most instances it creates problems. I'd much rather see a menu item disabled and still holding a place, then removed completely from a menu. Microsoft is terrible with this with "Menus show recently used commands first." I hate it, and disable this feature each time I install Office2000 or Outlook.
Dan, can you give an example where "progressive discovery" works well? -Chipp > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Dan Shafer > Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 11:25 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Universal GUI > > > > On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 12:57 AM, Scott Rossi asked: > > > Does this mean that any time you've encountered a preference group in > > an > > application or the system that contains disabled checkboxes, you stop > > using > > the program/system immediately and trash it? > > > > I wonder how you get along without QuickTime (System > > Preferences/QuickTime/Connection tab), non US keyboard layouts (System > > Preferences/International/Input Menu Tab), the Mouse control panel > > (with a > > trackpad), or a modem (System Preferences/Network/Modem tab)? > > > Short answer: I had never looked at any of those settings until you > pointed them out. > > Short reaction: No, I probably don't absolutely and immediately stop > using the program/system. If there are alternatives, I might. If > there's a program I must have and it does this kind of thing, I > probably learn to tolerate it but I am an unhappy user. > > Alternative design: Apple's designers should not disable the checkbox; > rather they should hide the option until and unless the user makes a > selection from the popup menu that should enable the user to change the > checkbox setting. Then and only then the checkbox should appear. This > is part of another key UI design concept: progressive discovery. Only > show the user as much of the UI as is needed to accomplish the > immediate objective. Several Claris products 15 years ago, for which > the UI was designed by one world-class designer, demonstrated this > brilliantly. Why should I even have to look at the checkbox and have it > clutter my use of the program if it's not relevant to my current > situation? No value. No reason for it to be there. > > I'm a real minimalist when it comes to UI design anyway. Every single > component of the UI ought to serve some practical purpose. If it > doesn't, banish it. > > > _______________________________________________ > use-revolution mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
