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Re: Button order
by goosnargh on Tuesday 04/Feb/2003, @05:49
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These shouldn't be any. Gnome 2's default is DUMB. It makes no sense whatsoever to lead people clicking on the wrong button:
a) for the first few months of migration to your architecture
b) whenever they use something else
It is too great a sin to change button ordering in a minor revision too. That is a big fuck-up, it will be hard to clean. But whatever it takes, the burden is Gnome devels'.
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Re: Button order
by cbcbcb on Tuesday 04/Feb/2003, @10:02
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And when that's finished we can start the discussion on whether OK is a sensible label, or whether it should reflect what action will be taken by clicking the button (ie label the buttons Print/Cancel rather OK/Cancel)
"Print/Cancel" is clearly superior but many developers seem not to realise this
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Re: Button order
by Janne on Tuesday 04/Feb/2003, @12:44
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Hmm. As a lot of people are pointing out, the button order thing is a thorny one, with some irreconcileable demands. On the one hand, there is a smallish but clear benefit to having the Apple/Gnome button order; on the other hand, people do _not_ want to relearn stuff, even when they ultimately benefit. A classic example of this is the Dvorak/qwerty issue. Granted, the relearning for using Dvorak is many times larger than for button order, but then, so are the potential benefits.
What Gnome and KDE (and every sensible desktop) do get right, on the other hand, is "make the save choice the default". I honestly never reflect on varying button order as I work on different desktops. Instead I rely on being able to just choose the marked one (or just press return) when I don't want something to happen, and choose the other (with mouse or TAB) when I do. As long as that principle is obeyed by developers, the order is no longer truly significant.
And don't forget that a different desktop looks and acts different in many ways, giving a clear contextual difference to a user, who can pretty easily learn different behaviors depending on the context/desktop. Having, as someone here suggested, a common desktop setting for stuff like button order, single/double click and so on would be great. Everybody wins.
/Janne
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Re: Button order
by antiphon on Tuesday 04/Feb/2003, @18:26
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Unfortunately, the research on this is still a little bit thin, either way, IMHO.
However, I believe it was wrong for GNOME to switch the button order in the 2.x series after already having done the opposite in 1.x.
This is bad consistency. It's like Microsoft suddenly deciding to move the Close button over to the left side (which happens to be where I like it ;). Mass demonstrations would follow.
Only if you are willing to significantly overhaul the UI is such a change as modifying the button order justified.
Remove the previous year to email me.
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"ok" and "cancel" and the likes are evil!
by Datschge on Tuesday 04/Feb/2003, @22:12
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Buttons should make sense in the context they are used. "ok" and "cancel" are doing nothing so they should be renamed to whatever fits into the context. After this is done it won't really matter anymore in what order the buttons are since the user will be quicker at understanding the purpose of the buttons instead having to combine the abstract thinking of "ok" and "cancel" with the context related feeling of doing something dangerous. This feeling overcomes the user when he's unsure about something, and abstract "ok" and "cancel" buttons only give a feeling of security if they stay at the same place since the place actually implies which of both is more dangerous to use.
(blah blah and so on and so on)
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