unity-design team mailing list archive

[Vincenzo Ciancia <ciancia@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Il giorno lun, 01/06/2009 alle 11.55 -0400, Celeste Lyn Paul ha scritto:
> On Monday 01 June 2009 11:19:31 am Vincenzo Ciancia wrote:
> > Il giorno lun, 01/06/2009 alle 10.30 -0400, Celeste Lyn Paul ha scritto:
> > > kwin can also know when a dropdown or context menu is open. i've been
> > > looking
> > > into the possibility of delaying notifications which occur during
> > > these types
> > > of interactions for n seconds. several researcher groups have found
> > > significant
> > > benefits for these types of "computer-mediated" interruptions.
> >
> > At an intuitive level can we say that when dropdowns or context menus
> > are opened, the user is typically doing something short and that
> > requires focus (such as filling in a form or selecting a menu entry) and
> > then it is better not to interrupt the user in that precise moment?
> >
> > I see that when I am chosing a menu entry I wouldn't normally move my
> > eyes to look at a notification.
> 
> Sometimes you don't have a choice. Screen flickers and animation have a high 
> attentional draw and your eye will react by instinct. That's why things like 
> advertisements on websites are so annoying. However, the more focused you are, 
> the less attentional draw it will have but usually that only matters to tiny 
> things like an icon appearing or changing color, not a popup on your screen. 

Yes I meant that I would not _want to_ move my eyes, that's because I am
carefully moving my hand to select something and it's already more
difficult than it should be. 

Trying not to interrupt an user when she is performing tasks that
require motion-eye coordination may be a very good idea.

> > Do you have pointers to some document by these research groups?
> 
> I have a very long bibliography on the subject, but I'm not sure you want to 
> go through a hundred research papers.

Thanks, it's just to keep some sort of pointers to real studies when we
talk about design principles, names of researchers are enough for me :)

Vincenzo