"Mathias Bauer" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]... > Harold Fuchs wrote: > >> We can only comment on what we are shown. What I saw was terrible and I >> said so. If what was shown does not represent the intentions then show >> us what is intended. Philosophical arguments about UIs and context >> sensitive menus are a waste of time and effort. The only thing that >> counts is the *implemented* ergonomics. Show us what you plan to do, >> with proper examples. > > Again the misunderstanding about what a prototype is. > > If you created a petition that the new UI for OOo must not look like the > prototype, I would be the first to sign it. But that's not the point. > IMHO the prototype created so much resistance because it was not > explained enough. > > BTW: I didn't present philosophical arguments about UI, I explained > considerations about an operating philosophy, that's something > completely different. It is essential to have an operating philosophy > for your user interface. If you don't have one, you can only copy > something from elsewhere, exactly what some people allege what is > happening in Renaissance. Without outlining that we indeed have such > operating philosophy was the only way I could think of that could > explain that in fact we are *not* just copying. > >> My main objections are: >> 1. The UI shown in the example took far too much screen space. > > Now this is exactly the way how we should talk about that. Indeed this > is something I also don't like in what the prototype shows. IMHO we have > to optimize that. > >> 2. The UI is far less important than many other things in OOo. If there >> are resources available they should be deployed fixing major bugs and/or >> implementing popularly requested enhancements. How many requests are >> there for an improved UI compared to the number of requests for better >> interoperability with MS Office for example? Or compared to the number >> of requests for the properly implemented ability to allow multiple users >> to work on the same document. Or for a cleaner mail-merge that doesn't, >> for example, produce blank pages all over the place with no *obvious* >> way to turn them off? > > This is the recurrent discussion about priorities. Ask 5 people, get 6 > opinions. It won't help to discuss that further, and it will distract us > from the matter we are discussing here. I hope you don't mind if I stay > with the "Renaissance" topic. > >>> Too many people commented the blog entries that neither >>> understood what a prototype is nor what the particular prototype in >>> question wants to show. >> >> What *did* the prototype want to show? Why does it *need* an >> explanation? I thought a picture is as good as a thousand words. You >> seem to be saying we need a thousand words to explain a picture. > > Yes, sometimes this is true. Pictures can mislead, they often can be > interpreted in different ways. If you think a few seconds I'm sure you > will remember a lot of pictures that you would have misunderstood if > nobody had given you some background information. But once you have this > information, the picture indeed is better than thousand words. > > Regards, > Mathias
If you really want to enhance the UI, implement the facility where ***every*** possible option is available from the keyboard so that real typists don't have to keep switching between it and the mouse. There's an ancient organisation in Japan responsible for inventing and improving the "algorithms" used on a Japanese abacus (which is different from either a Chinese one or a Russian one). Years and years ago they discovered that the most time consuming activity when using an abacus is the *attention* switch (not the finger switch) required to move from one column of beads to another. Minimising the number of such moves can drastically improve performance. Similar thinking applies to the switch from the mouse to the keyboard and back, although in this case it's the finger switch that takes the time. That's why WordPerfect was so loved by professional typists - they could do everything from the keyboard. If done properly you could even make the same key combination mean different things in different contexts so you wouldn't run out of keys. Do you use professional "usability labs"? These are organisations that get people in off the street to try to use a piece of software. Typically the people don't have any training. They are observed & interviewed to find what comes easily and what doesn't. The results are used to improve the software's UI. I have usually found them very useful. Harold Fuchs London, England Please reply *only* to [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
