My UI principles was: (Re: [squeak-dev] Re: Simple Frame Adornments - default value...)

Chris Muller asqueaker at gmail.com
Thu Mar 4 17:02:10 UTC 2010


Great comments.  You illustrate the opposing forces of the computer
needing to be helpful and "friendly" without being "in your face".

It's a tight line for UI designers to walk, which is why I think it
requires detailed consideration..

Also *learning* the software is just one aspect.  The other aspect to
remember is, given whatever "friendly" indicators the software _does_
provide to aid in learning, how much demand is placed on the users
visual-scanning and fine-motor skill just to *operate* the software,
once learned.  These demands need to be minimized.


On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 3:18 AM, Alexander Lazarević <laza at blobworks.com> wrote:
> Just for what it's worth:
>
> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 03:50, Igor Stasenko <siguctua at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Friendly means that user should not be puzzled by UI , like what does
>> that red rectangle means.
>
> As I see it you can't in general prevent users from being puzzled by
> parts of the UI, because this largely depends on user experience.
> I'd say I would attribute to an friendly UI if a user can easily learn
> about it. Like when a new user sees that mark in the top right corner
> of a text view and wonders what it is about. If he would get a balloon
> help like "This indicates that the text/content has changed" or the
> like by just moving the mouse over it, would be a simple way to get a
> clue about it.
>
>> Drawing a semitransparent 'changed... [v][x]' in the text morph corner
>> is what i calling friendly.
>
> For my taste this is too much of "in my face". And the idea of having
> meta text inside some text content, even if it ain't likely that they
> overlap, does not really appeal to me.
>
> Alex
>
>



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