Oversimplified User Interfaces

[Brad Jones]

A spot to discuss my editiorial from today's Codeguru newsletter....

Feel free to disagree with what I said or to bash it!

Brad!

[Vanaj]

A spot to discuss my editiorial from today's Codeguru newsletter....

Feel free to disagree with what I said or to bash it!

Brad!

How about an easy link for us lazy types..

[Brad Jones]

How about an easy link for us lazy types..

Newsletter will be going out any minute. I won't post it to the site until tomorrow, so no link is available until then.

This is one of my weaker editorials (so my editors told me ). Hopefully everyone else doesn''t think it is so bad.

I'll prep you for it by asking this question -

If I gave you a small button with an X in it, what would you expect it to do:

Brad!

[exterminator]

It depends on where it is placed - most common being top right corner of windows - close button.. or a stop button as in browsers.. On a calculator it would mean multiplication..

[Vanaj]

It depends on where it is placed - most common being top right corner of windows - close button.. or a stop button as in browsers.. On a calculator it would mean multiplication..

Could also be a Checkbox when next to text label...

Brad,
Where is the subscription selection for the Newsletter ??

[Brad Jones]

Where is the subscription selection for the Newsletter ??

On the right side of of the home page (www.Codeguru.com). Just under the big ad.

Brad!

[exterminator]

Yeah, and it could even be just a button with an X-mark on it .. nothing doing with computers and applications... that is how our minds have got biased.. may be this is what Brad's newsletter talks about ..

[Vanaj]

On the right side of of the home page (www.Codeguru.com). Just under the big ad.

Brad!

That is way too logical a place to put that...I hope I got all the checks correct...

[MrViggy]

Like other said, depends on the context.

If it's in the upper right corner of a box; if it's "standing" by itself (like Firefox's "find" popup at the bottom of the browser) I'd expect it to "close" that window.

If there are multiples grouped visually, I'd kinda expect them to behave like checkboxes.

Viggy

[Vanaj]

On the right side of of the home page (www.Codeguru.com). Just under the big ad.

Brad!

Brad,

FYI, the URL has a ")" at the end of it and doesn't work.

[falconsoft]

I too didn't like the over reliance on toolbar icons. Its there in Office 2007 (Beta) too. I was using Excel and got very irritated using it. The toolbar is now so big and uses a lot of space. Also, can't see any hot\shortcut keys- which again is irritating. I many times switch back to using older versions of Excel (I have Excel 2000).

- Manoj

[Brad Jones]

The newsletter is now posted:

http://www.codeguru.com/announcement...e.php/3640111/

[Vanaj]

A spot to discuss my editiorial from today's Codeguru newsletter....

Feel free to disagree with what I said or to bash it!

Brad!

Here is my thoughts...

If you are going to use buttons with only symbols then you should also give the user a choice between the smaller/symbol only and a larger button with text. To use only small buttons with only a hint baloon is not a good idea as I feel it will deter new users from the product and maybe steer them towards a product with better interface. To say there is also a full menu if the user can't remember/figure out what these symbols mean is a major step backwards in GUI to almost the days of stone.

As to the use of IE7, I must first say that I moved to Firefox because of the tabs, security, and the ability to block the popups. If Microsoft has indeed fixed the many/major security flaws in IE7 that were present in previous versions I will most likely move to using IE7 more and more as it does seem faster and more compatiable with many websites.

At this point in time I do not see any advantage to move to Vista unless a 64bit system with a 1GB Video card shows up on my door step, I'll just wait until SP1 is released for Vista and maybe not even then. Other than the 64bit and the pretty new GUI, what else is there or is it a new skin on Windows 2.0.

I also do alot of testing of hardware and they are a weekly change to my test system and I think Microsofts new "Force them to give us money if they try to move the OS to another machine" EULA really, really SUCKS. It is really got me thinking about Linux more and more and yes maybe even moving to MAC OS X where good developers are needed and rewarded.

I think Microsoft should be happy with the 1 Billion dollar net profits a QUARTER and tell stock holders if that's not enough for you go invest in oil.

"Of course that is just my opinion, I could be wrong"

[Hobson]

Some time ago I noticed that user interfaces of 'common use' applications are changing mainly in two ways. First is, that the way user can interact with application is extremely limited. Almost every application shipped with scanner, camera, VCR, MP3 player, mobile phone, etc etc (I believe that these are apps most frequently used by people who do not use computers or software for work) has one main dialog box with like six large, colorful buttons, and clicking any of then spawns new window of some app module. No menu, no accelerators, no nothing. Window is pretty skinned, colorful, buttons look cool, and are not labelled. There is no other way to know what these buttons do until one clicks or (lucky ones) rolls mouse over. I am findig interface like this completly unserviceable, annoying and hard to use. The other thing is that these interfaces mostly use some pretty skinning and themes and God-knows-what-other-eye-****ers implemented in vey unefficient way. Windows are of non-rectangular shape, close/maximize/minimize buttons are modified, dialogs cannot be minimized, and often stay always-on-top. Repainting window after it gets covered/minimized/clicked/anything takes ages. Everything blinks, flickers, plays sounds, beeps, makes me mad, oh please somebody make it stop...
I promise, some day I will check every 'About...' box in every application which pisses me off and any programmer mentioned as responsible for GUI will have very moralizing email to read. Oh even thinking about this GUI hell makes me mad
If I only could to modify my WinXP installation CD, I would make Windows classic Look'n'Feel default, no welcome/goodbye sound, no menu effects, always visible accelerators, and so many, many more

Just my two cents. I havent seen MSIE 7 yet, and I doubt if I will anytime soon. I am satisfied with my Opera, with simple look, no skinning, tons of shortcut keys, mouse gestures, tabs, and so on. So, no word about MSIE in this post (BTW did they already fix that <input type= > bug?).

Regards,
Hob

[exterminator]

I think your editors told you something that I am here to say.
Don't get me wrong, though.. just commenting based on what I feel... against the motion

A lot of people thought XP had a great UI when it came. Some of my friends got crazy about it. But even now, I change the theme to 98 one. That looks better to me.

There are basically 2 types of percievers categorized on their reaction to change. One who like the change and one who like to stick with the old. I haven't see the new icons but that might not be as major an issue than if the positions of those buttons were moved to right side or for the simplest case even swapped. That would have had been real uncomfortable.

You donot mention if there is a change in position on the explorer. If that is the same as what currently is - it should be fine. The paperish look being taken out is not that bad as compared to if they change the X or the Refresh Icon itself.

The change in IE would have had been a ripple effect of the change in the Vista UI on the whole. I don't have it and hence I would not be able to comment on it well.

There are also another section of percievers - they take more notice of the changes.. and say "Hey, Vista is totally changed! It looks so cool now" while their counterparts would say "Uh-oh, what has MS done in this version, it all looks the same, it isn't worth it". Mind you, they are not the customers who are programmers - who look at the API supports, UI support for their applications. They may not appreciate those things and may go just by the UI. So, change (not major) is sometimes required in products look and feel. Had Vista not be having any additional features that it might be having and just had a changed UI - they is a chance that it would have had become popular in the non-programmer sections of its customers. The fact is UI sells.

I agree that the meaning of the icons should not change but a little tweaking in the icons is OK. It would have had been wierd if the X button did the refresh or added a bookmark. As long as it means the same - it is the "X" that people notice. I did not even see that the paper that you referred has a little fold at the top right corner. Very few people notice those. I consider this a small change and it should not hamper the usability or popularity. (as long as I have understood it well and considering that I haven't actually seen the difference in functionality to push users to take help of the IE Menu items)

That's all my opinion. Don't consider it as any kind of judgement on what you said.