unity-design team mailing list archive

[Mario Vukelic <mario.vukelic@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 2010-04-23 at 11:36 -0700, Eric Pritchett wrote:
> I'd like to suggest having a Compact Menu View mode enabled by default
> for most windows/apps.  The thinking is if a user only uses the File,
> Edit, View, Help, etc 5 times out of 100 and uses the icons below it
> 95/100 times then wouldn't it be better to hide the menu?  

MS Office did this at least up to Office 2003 (dunno about 2007/2010),
and as far as I can tell it was a big failure. I know only two groups of
users: those that turn it off immediately and those who are continually
confused by it. We turn it off by default in our company (15,000 staff)
because tests indicated that the number of generated helpdesk calls
along the lines of "I know that this feature exists because I have used
it before, but for the life of me I cannot find it anymore" would be
rather large.

For proficient users it decreases the effectiveness of muscle memory. I
don't hunt for menus in the Office apps I use a lot, it all works pretty
automatic. I tried to work with this feature in Office, but every time
the menus get rearranged it makes me stumble and pause to think and
hunt. Just because I haven't used a particular feature for a few days or
weeks does not mean that I want to go hunt for it.

I do not think that computers should rearrange UI elements autonomously
until they have become much, much better at interpreting human
intentions, which I guess is a hard AI problem.

Apparently some version of XP had a "feature" to move files and
shortcuts from the desktop into a folder on the desktop, "unused items"
or some such, objecting to what MS apparently perceived as untidiness on
the user's part. It did this when the user had not interacted with the
file for x amount of time (may have been 3 months). Unfortunately it did
apparently not check whether the computer had been used at all during
this time. Sure enough, my mother - who turns her computer on once in a
blue moon - called me each time because "all my stuff is gone". Note
that she also was used to launch applications from desktop shortcuts.

Now, this is a crass example of stupidity on Microsoft's part, and one
that can easily be fixed or at least improved by taking actual computer
usage into account. However, it still serves to illustrate how easily
users freak out if their stuff is being rearranged autonomously*. 


Other opinions: 
http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=94078


Regards
Mario


* Users I know manage their files spatially, with dozens of files spread
out over two large screens. When they need one, they will know that
it's, say, in the top right corner of the right-hand screen. It looks
messy and it may not seem or even objectively be the most efficient
method, but it works for them and I must admit that it does make a
certain sense in the context of their work.