[ge-talk] glasselevator: User Interface

[Ari Haviv]

On 12/19/06, Michael Phipps <mphipps1 at rochester.rr.com> wrote:
>
> I always laugh a little when people take linux, change some small thing
> (package managers, desktop app) and call it an OS. Sort of like saying "I
> took a Ford Taurus, put in leather seats and a spoiler and now it is a
> Symphony car!".
>
> What is this, really? AFAICT, A semi-transparent (and some of the osdir
> screenshots show how unclear and unappealing that can be!) set of menus on
> the desktop. Putting some commonly used icons in the corners.
>
> I have some very mixed feelings about this.


http://www.tuxmachines.org/gallery/Symphony/background
obviously so easy to use huh
 I like the idea of putting printer icons on the desktop. I'm not crazy
about individual hard drive icons on the desktop and I like the "my
computer" collecting them in one place.

One of the things that Fitt's Law doesn't take into account is the ever
> increasing size of the monitor. On a 320x200 screen, it is always easy to
> get to a corner. On a 1600 X 1200 monitor, corners are no longer the
> vastly
> desirable real estate that they once were.


I have a 22" monitor. I was playing around with this. (even with eyes
closed) It is easy to fling the mouse to hit the upper left corner and get
it dead on. I tried the other corners and they don't work as well. Upper
left is also important because we read from top to bottom, left to right.

This is why I'm thinking on the upper left corner  we should have one word:
"Menu" and when you throw the mouse on it, it automatically drops down the
menu. Throw drag and click. It also saves a lot of space, even more than the
mac global menu. And it's easier to target than the mac menu because with
mac, you throw the mouse up, move laterally to the menu item, then click
then drag and then click.

We could use the rest of the top row for icons such as the category dock
idea.

After the upper left corner comes the lower left corner. This is where I put
the deskbar and should be easy to hit the Haiku menu. But it doesn't deserve
to be on top because we use the app menus more.



As far as the "simplify the desktop by only putting stuff on there that you
> need", that is a user choice. My desktop tends to be empty. Other people
> can choose that route if they want, as well. The problem is that people
> want a "working space" - a place where they can get to quickly for the
> current batch of "stuff" that they are working on. Mezzo, apparently,
> tries
> to solve this with the dock, as Apple does.
>
> I cringe when I see people's desktops with 100 icons on them. Part of the
> fault is, IMHO, the poor organization of the single "begin" menu (start,
> Be
> menu, whatever). Think about it - if someone follows the Windows standard
> (company name / product name / application), it takes:



Windows standard is by company? I didn't know that was a standard?!!! man,
no wonder why we need Haiku!
Microsoft came up with the start menu because of the poor organization of
Windows Explorer. Cluttered icons because of the poor start menu.
Quicklaunch because the icons...and there's a >> which pops up 15 more icons
on my quicklaunch!

move to bottom left corner
> click
> move to all programs
> wait (or click)
> move to company name
> wait (or click)
> move to application name
> wait (or click)
> move to application
> click


You also have to spend a lot of time reading throughout all the clutter.

I always reorganize to be more like what BeOS Max does - categories like
> internet, office, etc.
> Then you get:
>
> move to bottom left corner
> click
> move to all programs
> wait (or click)
> move to category
> wait (or click)
> move to application
> click
>
> 4 vs 5 and category is more logical, to me, than company. All Programs is
> only necessary because the company first level is so poor. In BeOS, I use
>
> move to top right corner
> click
> move to category
> wait (or click)
> move to app
> click
>
> Which is more reasonable. Tying into our other conversation, I really
> like:
>
> move to category on dock
> click
> move to app
> click
>
> I used this interface for a couple of years and really liked it. It does
> take some getting used to (people used to pick on me about my "Star Wars"
> desktop), but within an hour or so I was far more productive with that
> interface than with a start menu.
>
> Michael
>
> It is categories, information and logic that should lead us to the future
UI. not flashy 3D effects.
if you have a really poor UI with lots of flashy distractions, you'll end up
working slower even if you have lots of gigahertz and newOS kernel. The mind
is a bottleneck to be taken into account and I don't think most developers,
artists and marketers understand that.
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