unity-design team mailing list archive

[James Jenner <james.g.jenner@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 27 August 2011 13:57, Jo-Erlend Schinstad
<joerlend.schinstad@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:

> Den 27. aug. 2011 05:02, skrev James Jenner:
>
>
>> I agree with you in regards to people learning the behaviour of the
>> application, people are not stupid and they will learn how to do certain
>> activities. This is partly the building of the mental model and partly
>> muscle memory.
>>
>>
> I don't understand that. By moving the buttons to the corner, it is very
> easy
> to hit. Hiding the buttons do not in any way impact muscle memory.
>
>
I was agreeing with you, not sure why you thought I was not. In regards to
my comment on muscle memory, I meant that once it is developed it doesn't
matter if they're visible or not.



>
>
>>  Well. How do people learn how to move windows? How do they learn how to
> press enter in order to get a new line? There are things you need to learn
> when using a computer. Assuming otherwise, is not constructive. People
> learn these things because they use their computers.
>
>
While people do need to learn things, you don't try and make it hard for
them for no reason other than someone thought hiding buttons makes
everything pretty and clean. I would have thought you have dealt with people
who are not familiar with computers, I know I have and actions like moving
windows is something that they have a hard time to learn. It's not a
frequent activity and it's something they generally don't bother doing as
they cannot remember how to do it (again based on my observations, but then
my work has historically let me interact with a lot of users who are first
time users of a computer and in that only when they have to).

Comparison to the enter key is not comparing apples to apples. It has
correlation in the real world, has text stating it's action and has
correlation with early electronic typewriters. This is very different to
say, learning how to close a window with the keyboard.



>
>>  You really think closing a window is an infrequent action? "When a window
> is maximized, the buttons are hidden and revealed when you move the
> mouse pointer to them". Lesson learned. You talk about over simplifying,
> but I think you're complicating things. If you aren't able to learn that
> the window controls are in the upper left corner, then you certainly won't
> be able to learn how to move windows, open the lenses or mostly anything
> else. Also, it is very important to remember that this kind of interaction
> is very common on the web, and that it is the most common thing people
> use computers for.


Frequency is relative. For a person who only surfs the net, they may never
close a window. I know people who only understand turning the computer on,
clicking on the big blue E and then surfing the net. When they finish they
don't close the window, they turn the computer off. Some people I know don't
understand about URL's and always search for hotmail or for their website
because they don't understand about bookmarks or about how to type in an
address. A lot of these people are either over 50 or just never have used
computers. There are still a lot of professions that don't require computer
use. There are a lot of people both young and old who dont understand
computers.

This is one reason why Apple has been so successful with the iPhone, it's
easy for people to figure out how to do things. you touch an icon or you
press the button on the bottom to exit, it's very obvious.

I should state clearly that I have as yet not seen the behaviour of the new
build (time poor at the moment), I'm only going on screen shots and
statements. I'm presuming there are no visual cues that they have been
hidden and that is my concern. If there are visual cues and thus making my
presumption incorrect, then while I would still be uncomfortable, I don't
see any major issue.

If however the controls are not visible at all and there are no visual cues
then how do they learn that they are there? By randomly moving the mouse
around the screen until they see something appear?



> I assume you're talking about Windows. But why is that so important?
> I was born in 1980 and when I grew up, we typed cd to switch directory,
> del to delete files, etc. Well, most users don't interact with their
> computers that way anymore. We cannot blindly do the same things
> because that's how they were done in the early days of computing. Most
> people have probably not even heard of Windows. We shouldn't try to be
> different for the sake of being different, but we certainly should not
> limit
> ourselves from fear of being different either.
>
>
Again I ask, who is Ubuntu for? When you were born and what you first used
has no bearing, I was born in the 60's and started learning on CMP based
systems, that has no bearing on this issue at all. Our individual ability to
adapt and learn doesn't count because we're in the advanced user class (and
we have exposure to many different systems).

It's all about who is Ubuntu targeted at and does it meet the needs of those
people? If the target audience is technically adept people, then no problem.
If however it is aimed at new users to computers then I would suggest that
it may not be appropriate.

Your presuming that I want things to be the same or to limit ourselves,
which is wrong. I have only argued that we need to make it easy for people
to a) learn and b) remember. However this doesn't mean making the UI ugly,
just usable and intuitive.  Personally I love the approach with Unity and I
like all the different ideas are being tried. But that doesn't mean that
every choice taken is a good choice.

James Jenner