unity-design team mailing list archive

["frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx" <frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello mpt,

On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 16:53, Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

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> Martín A. Casco wrote on 16/01/11 13:22:
> >...
> > With the last release of Elementary theme, authors include a modd for
> > Scrollbars.. No Steppers.
> >
> > The argument: Users normally don't use them, just use mouse scroll or
> > handle scrollbars. well I think that's true, at least in most cases.
>
> I don't think you, or they, have any idea how often people use them.
> <http://imgur.com/6ETb4>
>

that's nice ;)
I can confirm, many Users i observed feel safer with using scrollbars.
Also, with the mouse wheel, the larger the page is, the slower scrolling
becomes, compared to using a scrolling interface that allows navigating the
entire page with one gesture.
In other words: Users often prefer scrollbars, since the scrollwheel would
mean "scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll..." which can go on forever on
large pages, while with the scrollbar it's always "aim-click-drag-release".

Martín A. Casco wrote on 16/01/11 13:39:
> >
> > Well, for my last mail I've been thinking. Maybe 3 steppers for each
> > scrollbar could be more simple. If we are on the top off apps with the
> > mouse and want to use upper stepper we have to go down with the mouse
> > (thats the concept of my first mockup), this solution its not better at
> > all. So maybe this mockup represents better the concept of simplicity
> > on scrollbar's steppers.
> >...
>
> That's what KDE does. But it goes against the principle of parsimony:
> having two similarly accessible methods of doing the same thing slows
> people down, by making them dither. (For example, it's okay to have a
> title bar close button and a "Close" menu item, but having two close
> buttons is bad. Similarly, having two scroll-up buttons would be bad.)
>

yes, i remember okham's razor, parsimony is a great term in this context.
We also speak of "the path of the water" sometimes in different domains,
e.g. military strategy or social theories.
People will pick the easiest way, and confronted with many, they might get
confused initially.
But the learning time is short, considering that the icons are not similar
but truely identical.

It's a question of comfort, and i can imagine it to be much more convenient
to have redundant scrollbar steppers, and to have the ones on the bottom
together.
In the larger software suites i use for audio engineering, scrollbar
steppers are close to zoomcontrols, or even function as zoomcontrols when
dragged.
This is a major challenge for each competitor in the sector of audio
engineering suites, since overview, pan, zoom, content navigation are the
most frequently used features, even before all the edit features. In a busy
day, you might lose up to an hour to poor interaction design in this area.

I am quite confident that the current direction of Ubuntu will give it a
great UI, that can easily compete with the IxD of the professional software
suites out there..