Universal GUI

Dan Shafer dan at shafermedia.com
Mon Jul 28 11:32:00 EDT 2003


On Monday, July 28, 2003, at 12:57 AM, Scott Rossi asked:

> Does this mean that any time you've encountered a preference group in 
> an
> application or the system that contains disabled checkboxes, you stop 
> using
> the program/system immediately and trash it?
>
> I wonder how you get along without QuickTime (System
> Preferences/QuickTime/Connection tab), non US keyboard layouts (System
> Preferences/International/Input Menu Tab), the Mouse control panel 
> (with a
> trackpad), or a modem (System Preferences/Network/Modem tab)?
>
Short answer: I had never looked at any of those settings until you 
pointed them out.

Short reaction: No, I probably don't absolutely and immediately stop 
using the program/system. If there are alternatives, I might. If 
there's a program I must have and it does this kind of thing, I 
probably learn to tolerate it but I am an unhappy user.

Alternative design: Apple's designers should not disable the checkbox; 
rather they should hide the option until and unless the user makes a 
selection from the popup menu that should enable the user to change the 
checkbox setting. Then and only then the checkbox should appear. This 
is part of another key UI design concept: progressive discovery. Only 
show the user as much of the UI as is needed to accomplish the 
immediate objective. Several Claris products 15 years ago, for which 
the UI was designed by one world-class designer, demonstrated this 
brilliantly. Why should I even have to look at the checkbox and have it 
clutter my use of the program if it's not relevant to my current 
situation? No value. No reason for it to be there.

I'm a real minimalist when it comes to UI design anyway. Every single 
component of the UI ought to serve some practical purpose. If it 
doesn't, banish it.





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