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Re: Look and Feel


From: Drazen Kacar
Subject: Re: Look and Feel
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 17:18:12 +0000 (UTC)
User-agent: slrn/0.9.8.1 (FreeBSD)

M. Uli Kusterer wrote:

>    I did a few replies via the newsgroup, but it seems they're no 

This is via newsgroup, for what it's worth.

>  longer forwarded to this list. So I'll jump right in and try to catch 
>  up with where the discussion's gone by now.

>    The only argument I see for or against any of the approaches so far 
>  would be reading direction, and it'd work in favor of both:
> 
>  1) Left means when you read left-to-right you immediately see "now 
>  comes a scrolling area". It also makes alternating between 
>  editing/scrolling a tad easier for left-aligned text, but not for 
>  centered, right-aligned or other lists.
> 
>  2) Right means when you read left-to right, after you've read, your 
>  eye comes to the scroll bar, like the "read more..." caption below 
>  Slashdot postings.

I think you're wrong. Computer programs work the way you've described.
A human will try to make a mental model of what he sees. That works by:

a) ignoring the unimportant details (what's unimportant depends on the
   previous experience)
b) immediately catching the impotant details (those that stick out, for
   example)
c) trying to find the simplest mental model they can, if possible just
   like something already known

If you're new to scrollbars, you notice them because they stand out. If
you're familiar with scrollbars, you notice them only if they are not
where you expect them. If they are where you expect them, you don't notice
them at all. You simply use them when you need to do so. That's a good UI.

A couple of human behavior examples:

1. while my browser is downloading the web page I look at the scrollbar
   to see how large it is. The scrollbar in this case is just a perfectly
   good size indicator and has nothing to do with scrolling. I like it on
   the right because I've learned to look on the right side for size
   indicator and it's more separated from the text that way.

2. I keep scrollbar in the terminal windows on the left because it's out
   of the way. I know how big things are in the area that has scrolled off
   the screen and I don't need a size indicator. But I had to learn to
   skip it while reading the text in the terminal.

What would usability study make out of this?

>  I can see the merit in both, but I'm a GUI nut. So I'd prefer to see 
>  this decision be made for a GUI usability reason.

Usability is a sort-of-kind-of scientific approach in that you make a UI,
then bring a bunch of test subjects, let them work with your UI (you take
notes while they're at it) and you ask them questions later.

Usability results are usually not able to show the difference between
"you'll learn to live with this UI" and "you're really going to like it".
In both cases you'll have negative results from the test subjects because
the UI is new and they are uncustomed to it.

Test subjects never know what they want. They have never thought about UI
and they don't have the vocabulary to express their confused impressions
when you ask them about it. They'll only be able to say what they didn't
like (but seldom why) and maybe point out that it was easier with the UI
they were familiar with.

-- 
 .-.   .-.    Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely
(_  \ /  _)   ceremonial.
     |
     |        dave@fly.srk.fer.hr


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