Usability redux and some Firefox details
Aug. 28th, 2005 07:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nancylebovA recent discussion at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
landley has died because lj moves on pretty quickly, so I'm adding to it here.
I think usability splits into at least four somewhat overlapping parts: visual interface, documentation, installation, and making modification no harder than it has to be.
The visual interface may be the most specialized of the bunch--people's eyes and minds vary a lot, so a "good" user interface is, at best, one that's good for a lot of the target audience.
Interaction with users: I've heard that one way of improving user interfaces is to torture programmers by making them watch from behind one way glass or otherwise remotely while people try to use their programs.
After having accepted that usability is a separate skill, I've wondered if it's possible to outsource it, whether by recruiting usability mavens into the open source community or by having some of it done for pay by compahies which get the money back by offering conveniant packages. Eric's told me that both are being tried.
Random usability thing: the little black triangle in Firefox. I'd been using Firefox for months, and enduring having my search window stuck on Ebay for most of them before I noticed the little black triangle which gives pull-down menus. How many of you have noticed your little black triangles? There are two more by the forward and backward arrows.
I think the little black triangle could be improved by making it a little black downward pointing arrow, but it really is a fight between making all the handy features accessible and not cluttering the screen up too much.
And I've finally gotten a handle on adding new bookmarks--afaik, it isn't documented. Arguably, it's my fault for using the slow bookmark dragging process instead of noticing the Move icon right there at the top of the manage bookmarks screen. If there's any way to put a new bookmark where I want it as a simple part of adding it, I haven't discovered it yet.
It also took me a while to realize that checking "open in sidebar" does not improve my life in any way whatsoever.
On the other hand, it's not my fault that the slot for the url is called "location".
landley has died because lj moves on pretty quickly, so I'm adding to it here.I think usability splits into at least four somewhat overlapping parts: visual interface, documentation, installation, and making modification no harder than it has to be.
The visual interface may be the most specialized of the bunch--people's eyes and minds vary a lot, so a "good" user interface is, at best, one that's good for a lot of the target audience.
Interaction with users: I've heard that one way of improving user interfaces is to torture programmers by making them watch from behind one way glass or otherwise remotely while people try to use their programs.
After having accepted that usability is a separate skill, I've wondered if it's possible to outsource it, whether by recruiting usability mavens into the open source community or by having some of it done for pay by compahies which get the money back by offering conveniant packages. Eric's told me that both are being tried.
Random usability thing: the little black triangle in Firefox. I'd been using Firefox for months, and enduring having my search window stuck on Ebay for most of them before I noticed the little black triangle which gives pull-down menus. How many of you have noticed your little black triangles? There are two more by the forward and backward arrows.
I think the little black triangle could be improved by making it a little black downward pointing arrow, but it really is a fight between making all the handy features accessible and not cluttering the screen up too much.
And I've finally gotten a handle on adding new bookmarks--afaik, it isn't documented. Arguably, it's my fault for using the slow bookmark dragging process instead of noticing the Move icon right there at the top of the manage bookmarks screen. If there's any way to put a new bookmark where I want it as a simple part of adding it, I haven't discovered it yet.
It also took me a while to realize that checking "open in sidebar" does not improve my life in any way whatsoever.
On the other hand, it's not my fault that the slot for the url is called "location".
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Firefox
Date: 2005-08-28 12:56 pm (UTC)Re: Firefox
Date: 2005-08-28 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-28 12:56 pm (UTC)I mostly bookmark pages not by dragging, but by Ctrl-D, which brings up a dialog box allowing me to place a bookmark anywhere. But every so often, because that places the bookmark at the end of the list (or folder, if you prefer) I have to sort the lists alphabetically (right-click and Sort By Name), and then, if I wish, bring bookmarks back up to the top if I really want them there.
I wish I knew how to disable the "Open in Folders" feature at the bottom of a bookmark list; I have several times accidentally activated it for lists of bookmarks that are fifty or seventy entries long. Even with broadband, that's a pain.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-28 03:00 pm (UTC)Doesn't look like there's an easy clean way to do it. There *is* a dirty way to do it, if you're up to unzipping .jar files (in particular browser.jar), editing one of the files in there (in particular bookmarksMenu.js and the validOpenInTabsMenuItem function), and rezipping.
Backups strongly recommended if you do such a thing...there's a reason the Mozilla book I have (which is at work or I'd cite pages and such) calls that chapter "Hacking the Chrome Ugly". The clean way to do it would be to write an extension that reimplements that function...
no subject
Date: 2005-08-28 03:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-28 02:49 pm (UTC)Try the "Add Bookmark Here" extension from this site:
http://gorgias.de/mfe/
no subject
Date: 2005-08-28 04:18 pm (UTC)You're right, user interface design is a separate skill from writing efficient algorithms or well-organized object-oriented code. But user interface designers should work closely with programmers, so I don't think outsourcing is generally a good idea.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-28 07:58 pm (UTC)Main points: I suspect that documentation is yet another skill distinct from designing visual interfaces, but it's still part of usability. And while it would be nice for programmers and interface designers to work closely together, I get the impression that most programmers are so tempermentally averse to the sort of thought actually needed for interface design that bribery may be necessary. When I said "out-sourcing", I didn't mean that the work had to be done in India, but just that resources from outside the existing open source community might be needed.
As for working closely together, I don't have a feeling for how collaboration works in programming in general or in open source in particular. If anyone wants to chime in, please do. I gather that coordinating programming is another of those Hard Problems.
green circle?
Date: 2005-08-29 02:45 am (UTC)-mark m.
Re: green circle?
Date: 2005-08-29 06:02 am (UTC)Re: green circle?
Date: 2005-08-29 09:39 pm (UTC)Re: green circle?
Date: 2005-08-30 01:59 am (UTC)Me, i was well aware of the triangle-arrows, but I'm a programmer who's been online for longer than the WWW has existted, at least in usable form, and I've been writing web apps for several years now (nigh-exclusively for 5.5 years, occasionally before that.)
Re: green circle?
Date: 2005-08-30 03:28 am (UTC)Re: green circle?
Date: 2005-08-30 03:37 am (UTC)Re: green circle?
Date: 2005-08-30 05:13 am (UTC)The circle-with-arrow and the word "Go" are part of the same widget, which does not appear to be affected by the text/icon settings. I didn't notice color or presence/absence on my Linux box at work, which probably means it's also green, sameness being less noticeable than difference, in interfaces.
Re: green circle?
Date: 2005-08-30 12:43 pm (UTC)Thanks for your help.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-28 04:43 pm (UTC)I'm still using Mozilla as my main browser (which, by the way, doesn't have a search arrow), though I also have Firefox installed. I find that the look and feel of Firefox is just different enough, in a not-obviously-good way, that I've been reluctant to change. One of these days, maybe.