-- jon

Michael Andrews wrote:
----------
Activity theory driven design is not user driven, it is user adaptive.  It
assumes users will adapt to technology, regardless how bad it might be.  In
this respect, it shares with scenario and usage centered approaches a
contempt for users, expecting them to conform to how they *should* behave
toward technology, instead of how they actually do, and how they can
comfortably adapt.
----------

With regards to usage-centered design, of which I was the co-developer, this
is absolutely, unequivocally, and totally wrong. Nothing I have written or
said has ever suggested that users should conform to the technology. Quite
the contrary, our approach is to try for the closest possible fit to what
users actually do and how they do it and to support users with the best
possible tools to suit their needs and intentions.

If I sound offended, it is because I am. I have made a career of designing
systems that better adapt to users and to teaching others how to do the
same. Whether there is any truth to what you say about scenario-driven or
activity-centered design is another issue, but with regards to
usage-centered design it is complete and utter garbage.

--Larry Constantine, IDSA

-- jon

Michael Andrews wrote:
----------
Activity theory driven design is not user driven, it is user adaptive.  It
assumes users will adapt to technology, regardless how bad it might be.  In
this respect, it shares with scenario and usage centered approaches a
contempt for users, expecting them to conform to how they *should* behave
toward technology, instead of how they actually do, and how they can
comfortably adapt.
----------

With regards to usage-centered design, of which I was the co-developer, this
is absolutely, unequivocally, and totally wrong. Nothing I have written or
said has ever suggested that users should conform to the technology. Quite
the contrary, our approach is to try for the closest possible fit to what
users actually do and how they do it and to support users with the best
possible tools to suit their needs and intentions.

If I sound offended, it is because I am. I have made a career of designing
systems that better adapt to users and to teaching others how to do the
same. Whether there is any truth to what you say about scenario-driven or
activity-centered design is another issue, but with regards to
usage-centered design it is complete and utter garbage.

--Larry Constantine, IDSA

You have some good points, but I think you're being too harsh on poor Microsoft. Have you used OneNote? It's a great application and finally someone has executed the idea of not having a save dialog at all in a major, useful application.

I too am boggled by the inclusion of favorites and history in the Office save dialog, but as is often the case with UI criticism, you seem to be focusing solely on the bad here. There are definite missteps, but saying the UI is horrid? Word is one application that I've found most people seem to do OK with, and in the grand scheme of computer use, that's saying a lot. Despite the confusing flaws so apparent to us, millions of people manage to overcome the obstacles in Word every day. And I have respect and pity for Microsoft UI people not because of that accomplishment, but because of the legacy burden that unprecedented install base presents to making changes and the wide range of tasks it means trying to solve.

-- jon

On 2/11/05 2:12 AM, "Jade Ohlhauser" <jade@...> wrote:

You have some good points, but I think you're being too harsh on poor Microsoft. Have you used OneNote? It's a great application and finally someone has executed the idea of not having a save dialog at all in a major, useful application.

I too am boggled by the inclusion of favorites and history in the Office save dialog, but as is often the case with UI criticism, you seem to be focusing solely on the bad here. There are definite missteps, but saying the UI is horrid? Word is one application that I've found most people seem to do OK with, and in the grand scheme of computer use, that's saying a lot. Despite the confusing flaws so apparent to us, millions of people manage to overcome the obstacles in Word every day. And I have respect and pity for Microsoft UI people not because of that accomplishment, but because of the legacy burden that unprecedented install base presents to making changes and the wide range of tasks it means trying to solve.

In much the same way, people overcome the extreme difficulty of learning to become a pilot, play the piano, or setting up their new, unusable stereo system.  This is where the key word of “motivation” comes into play.  Something doesn’t have to be usable, engaging, or even good for millions of people to use it.  

I’ve recently moved from Mac OSX Mail to Microsoft’s Entourage because the people I work with have set up MS Exchange.  Mail is a simple, elegant application that does all I need in an email client.  Entourage is filled with features that for me remain unused, it doesn’t integrate well with the OS (I can’t even search through my emails) and is giving me no end of problems.  I’m only using Entourage because my office is on Exchange – not because I want to.

In much the same way as people got stuck with Lotus Notes, the typical business these days is stuck with MS Office and MS Word.  Word is one of the most frustrating applications I’ve used (especially when trying to place graphics), but it’s what most of my clients demand.

Jon Kern wrote:
----------
a valuable addition to something like Word would be the magic customizer
slider (that i have invented in my head for years when i was building a very
complex, somewhat horrid at times UI in the incarnation of TogetherSoft's
ControlCenter UML modeling tool) that would allow features to go from novice
to power user in terms of: visibility and depth and degree of user control.
----------

It's cute, been proposed many times by many people in one form or another,
but whether it's a slider or a series of radio button, it turns out to be a
bad idea.

(1) A user is not across the board novice, intermediate, or expert in
interaction style, but varies from one part of the UI to another. Typical
users are improving intermediates for the 10-20% of the UI they use fairly
regularly, expert for a few percent of over-learned features, and novices
for the remaining bulk. But that changes over time and even with respect to
what they are using the system for at a given moment.

(2) Having the entire configuration of the user interface change because the
user slips the slider up or down a notch is extremely disruptive user
experience.

(3) Most users do not actually know at what level they are operating or what
they should tell the system. Even making the choice on setup causes great
anxiety, as many users fear that if they set the level too low, they will be
prevented from doing things but if they set it too high they will be
overwhelmed. Interestingly, when allowed to choose between so-called short
menus (with reduced options and only basic features) and full menus, the
vast majority of users prefer long menus.

A far better approach is based on the progressive usage model (the ski-slope
model, as it is sometimes known) which supports continuous and incremental
in-context adaptation of the UI by users to fit evolving interaction style
and level of expertise. (Covered in our book and several papers.)

--Larry Constantine, IDSA

-- jon

Jon Kern wrote:
----------
a valuable addition to something like Word would be the magic customizer
slider (that i have invented in my head for years when i was building a very
complex, somewhat horrid at times UI in the incarnation of TogetherSoft's
ControlCenter UML modeling tool) that would allow features to go from novice
to power user in terms of: visibility and depth and degree of user control.
----------

It's cute, been proposed many times by many people in one form or another,
but whether it's a slider or a series of radio button, it turns out to be a
bad idea.

(1) A user is not across the board novice, intermediate, or expert in
interaction style, but varies from one part of the UI to another. Typical
users are improving intermediates for the 10-20% of the UI they use fairly
regularly, expert for a few percent of over-learned features, and novices
for the remaining bulk. But that changes over time and even with respect to
what they are using the system for at a given moment.

(2) Having the entire configuration of the user interface change because the
user slips the slider up or down a notch is extremely disruptive user
experience.

(3) Most users do not actually know at what level they are operating or what
they should tell the system. Even making the choice on setup causes great
anxiety, as many users fear that if they set the level too low, they will be
prevented from doing things but if they set it too high they will be
overwhelmed. Interestingly, when allowed to choose between so-called short
menus (with reduced options and only basic features) and full menus, the
vast majority of users prefer long menus.

A far better approach is based on the progressive usage model (the ski-slope
model, as it is sometimes known) which supports continuous and incremental
in-context adaptation of the UI by users to fit evolving interaction style
and level of expertise. (Covered in our book and several papers.)

--Larry Constantine, IDSA

Hi Jon,

On Thursday, November 3, 2005, at 5:06:30 AM, Jon Kern wrote:

>  if you read carefully, you'll see my idea was always based on a per-feature
(or group) concept,
> so to speak.
>     " slider that would allow features to go from novice to power user"
>  Not across the board, as I agree it would be bad UI.

Reading incredibly carefully, I see the word "slider", not
"sliders", suggesting strongly that there is just one across the
board slider.

> The idea is that you can allow the user to peel back the wrapper
> and access more features at their pace. The system would magically
> track their level of comfort and expertise and frequency of use.
> All based on metadata recorded about the UI/features and usages...

Oh ... and I guess from this that you mean an internal slider, not a
visible one, where some all-knowing being is deciding how I'm doing
and exposing new features for me, not a slider that I the user can
adjust?

> One of the features we built for Together to control the UI was a
> role-based configuration. An analyst will need to have very
> different parts of the app available than, for example, a
> developer. An analyst doesn't need the code editor, debugger, and
> the like. Of course, it was available if it was really needed. It
> was just a way to control the default features that were visible
> and front-and-center, so to speak.

And was that good? Did actual users really like it? A situation
today that is like that is Visual Studio 2005, which holds all kinds
of things back in the Team Version that should in fact be available
to kids on the street in the Pick Up at Circuit City and Learn C# in
Your Free Time version.

VS 2005, to me, is trying to control how I work, based in part on my
pocketbook and in part on some Vision From Redmond about how I
should work, rather than letting me control how I work.

This isn't the same as your example but it's an example of how very
far awry incremental exposure can go.

> Of course, a better goal is to provide better UIs. But, it does
> become very challenging for big honkin' tools like Together or
> OptimalJ or even IDEs to accommodate varying levels of expertise
> as a new user goes from novice to power user.

Yes, it really does. I'm not at all sure that hiding things works
... when I use another person's version of Office that isn't
configured like mine, I often look for things that I'm being
protected from because the program doesn't realize that a Word God
has just sat down at the keyboard. I suppose it should be reading
the Microsoft Customer RFID chip in my brain. Maybe next version.

> What sorts of UI design rules of thumb apply for these types of
> highly complex apps?

I, too, look forward to hearing this answer!

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
Example isn't another way to teach, it is the only way to teach.
   --Albert Einstein

 

Jade Ohlhauser

Product Manager

RPM Software                                 

www.rpmsoftware.com 403-265-6727 x704

 

---

From: agile-usability@yahoogroups.com [mailto:agile-usability@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Larry Constantine
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 8:02 AM
To: agile-usability@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [agile-usability] user expertise and progressive usage (was RE: norman)

Jon Kern wrote:
----------
a valuable addition to something like Word would be the magic customizer
slider (that i have invented in my head for years when i was building a very
complex, somewhat horrid at times UI in the incarnation of TogetherSoft's
ControlCenter UML modeling tool) that would allow features to go from novice
to power user in terms of: visibility and depth and degree of user control.
----------

It's cute, been proposed many times by many people in one form or another,
but whether it's a slider or a series of radio button, it turns out to be a
bad idea.

(1) A user is not across the board novice, intermediate, or expert in
interaction style, but varies from one part of the UI to another. Typical
users are improving intermediates for the 10-20% of the UI they use fairly
regularly, expert for a few percent of over-learned features, and novices
for the remaining bulk. But that changes over time and even with respect to
what they are using the system for at a given moment.

(2) Having the entire configuration of the user interface change because the
user slips the slider up or down a notch is extremely disruptive user
experience.

(3) Most users do not actually know at what level they are operating or what
they should tell the system. Even making the choice on setup causes great
anxiety, as many users fear that if they set the level too low, they will be
prevented from doing things but if they set it too high they will be
overwhelmed. Interestingly, when allowed to choose between so-called short
menus (with reduced options and only basic features) and full menus, the
vast majority of users prefer long menus.

A far better approach is based on the progressive usage model (the ski-slope
model, as it is sometimes known) which supports continuous and incremental
in-context adaptation of the UI by users to fit evolving interaction style
and level of expertise. (Covered in our book and several papers.)

--Larry Constantine, IDSA

-- jon

Well said Larry.

 

I agree having a single control that changes the UI or other sort of interface "expertise" modes is not a good idea. You're asking the user to make a decision without a lot of information on what the consequences and rewards are and what their own needs are. Also, it's a disruptive jump moving "up to the next level". It's not quite back to square one, but it's a real and/or perceived step backwards in the user's journey to application mastery. Finally, I think if there's something so bad about something that it needs to be removed from the UI for a so called "beginner" user, then it should probably be redesigned.

 

Nice find with that photo app Jon, oh man is that bad. It's almost too painful to compare it to something like Picassa 2.

 

And if I may slip in one more UI praise for Word that in my opinion makes up for a lot of bad, the red squiggly. I'm talking about underlining misspelled words right away instead of waiting for a spell check. Brilliant. Of course, they ended up taking the superficial element of the concept too far with the Smart Tags. Talk about missing the point.

 

Jade Ohlhauser

Product Manager

RPM Software                                 

www.rpmsoftware.com 403-265-6727 x704

 

---

<cut>

Hi Jon,

On Thursday, November 3, 2005, at 5:06:30 AM, Jon Kern wrote:

>  if you read carefully, you'll see my idea was always based on a per-feature (or group) concept,
> so to speak.
>     " slider that would allow features to go from novice to power user"
>  Not across the board, as I agree it would be bad UI.

Reading incredibly carefully, I see the word "slider", not
"sliders", suggesting strongly that there is just one across the
board slider.

> The idea is that you can allow the user to peel back the wrapper
> and access more features at their pace. The system would magically
> track their level of comfort and expertise and frequency of use.
> All based on metadata recorded about the UI/features and usages...

Oh ... and I guess from this that you mean an internal slider, not a
visible one, where some all-knowing being is deciding how I'm doing
and exposing new features for me, not a slider that I the user can
adjust?

> One of the features we built for Together to control the UI was a
> role-based configuration. An analyst will need to have very
> different parts of the app available than, for example, a
> developer. An analyst doesn't need the code editor, debugger, and
> the like. Of course, it was available if it was really needed. It
> was just a way to control the default features that were visible
> and front-and-center, so to speak.

And was that good? Did actual users really like it? A situation

today that is like that is Visual Studio 2005, which holds all kinds
of things back in the Team Version that should in fact be available
to kids on the street in the Pick Up at Circuit City and Learn C# in
Your Free Time version.

VS 2005, to me, is trying to control how I work, based in part on my
pocketbook and in part on some Vision From Redmond about how I
should work, rather than letting me control how I work.

This isn't the same as your example but it's an example of how very
far awry incremental exposure can go.

> Of course, a better goal is to provide better UIs. But, it does
> become very challenging for big honkin' tools like Together or
> OptimalJ or even IDEs to accommodate varying levels of expertise
> as a new user goes from novice to power user.

Yes, it really does. I'm not at all sure that hiding things works

... when I use another person's version of Office that isn't
configured like mine, I often look for things that I'm being
protected from because the program doesn't realize that a Word God

has just sat down at the keyboard. I suppose it should be reading
the Microsoft Customer RFID chip in my brain. Maybe next version.

> What sorts of UI design rules of thumb apply for these types of
> highly complex apps?

I, too, look forward to hearing this answer!

Ron Jeffries
www.XProgramming.com
Example isn't another way to teach, it is the only way to teach.
  --Albert Einstein

-- jon

"Nice find with that photo app Jon, oh man is that bad. It's almost too painful to compare it to something like Picassa 2. "

btw: yes, it is a bit exploratory as far as the UI goes, i think. i bet it is going for a different audience and is purposely trying not to look like every other photo program on the planet (like Picasa). They wanted to make the ability to organize and tag photos through simple "who/what/where" info via drag-n-drop or simple type to get a list of tags or create tags. and to make it so your "Mom" can even share photos with friends.

it's actually easy to use and I don't mind not having a stupid "file" or "edit" or "help" menu. click one button to share one or more photos... click tags to sort: "Jonny" "Mountain" "Nepal" to narrow down to all pics of Jonny, then Jonny with Mountains, then Jonny + Mountains + in Nepal.

And praise for Word? That squiggly is what IDEs have been doing for a while: catching errors as you make them.

-- jon

Jade Ohlhauser said the following on 11/2/2005 1:12 PM:

Well said Larry.

 

I agree having a single control that changes the UI or other sort of interface "expertise" modes is not a good idea. You're asking the user to make a decision without a lot of information on what the consequences and rewards are and what their own needs are. Also, it's a disruptive jump moving "up to the next level". It's not quite back to square one, but it's a real and/or perceived step backwards in the user's journey to application mastery. Finally, I think if there's something so bad about something that it needs to be removed from the UI for a so called "beginner" user, then it should probably be redesigned.

 

Nice find with that photo app Jon, oh man is that bad. It's almost too painful to compare it to something like Picassa 2.

 

And if I may slip in one more UI praise for Word that in my opinion makes up for a lot of bad, the red squiggly. I'm talking about underlining misspelled words right away instead of waiting for a spell check. Brilliant. Of course, they ended up taking the superficial element of the concept too far with the Smart Tags. Talk about missing the point.

 

Jade Ohlhauser

Product Manager

RPM Software                                 

www.rpmsoftware.com 403-265-6727 x704

 

---

<cut>

-- jon

"Nice find with that photo app Jon, oh man is that bad. It's almost too painful to compare it to something like Picassa 2. "

btw: yes, it is a bit exploratory as far as the UI goes, i think. i bet it is going for a different audience and is purposely trying not to look like every other photo program on the planet (like Picasa). They wanted to make the ability to organize and tag photos through simple "who/what/where" info via drag-n-drop or simple type to get a list of tags or create tags. and to make it so your "Mom" can even share photos with friends.

it's actually easy to use and I don't mind not having a stupid "file" or "edit" or "help" menu. click one button to share one or more photos... click tags to sort: "Jonny" "Mountain" "Nepal" to narrow down to all pics of Jonny, then Jonny with Mountains, then Jonny + Mountains + in Nepal.

And praise for Word? That squiggly is what IDEs have been doing for a while: catching errors as you make them.

-- jon

Jade Ohlhauser said the following on 11/2/2005 1:12 PM:

Well said Larry.

 

I agree having a single control that changes the UI or other sort of interface "expertise" modes is not a good idea. You're asking the user to make a decision without a lot of information on what the consequences and rewards are and what their own needs are. Also, it's a disruptive jump moving "up to the next level". It's not quite back to square one, but it's a real and/or perceived step backwards in the user's journey to application mastery. Finally, I think if there's something so bad about something that it needs to be removed from the UI for a so called "beginner" user, then it should probably be redesigned.

 

Nice find with that photo app Jon, oh man is that bad. It's almost too painful to compare it to something like Picassa 2.

 

And if I may slip in one more UI praise for Word that in my opinion makes up for a lot of bad, the red squiggly. I'm talking about underlining misspelled words right away instead of waiting for a spell check. Brilliant. Of course, they ended up taking the superficial element of the concept too far with the Smart Tags. Talk about missing the point.

 

Jade Ohlhauser

Product Manager

RPM Software                                 

www.rpmsoftware.com 403-265-6727 x704

 

---

<cut>

AU:

Because I'm proficient at using GUIs with a keyboard, and I'm a sloppy
typist, Excel has a committed "feature" that drives me nuts.

When I type into a cell, I'm not really in edit-mode. I'm in some kind
of "add text" mode. We all know that GUI "modes" are bad. <F2>
switches to real edit mode.

When I type a mistake, I may catch it several words later. The most
efficient way to move the text caret back to the mistake is either
<Left> or <Ctrl+Left>. It's not <Backspace>, because I'm proficient.
I'm smart enough not to need to type all that text again just to edit
a mistake.

However, Excel interprets the <Left> as "move focus to cell in
previous column". Worse, <Ctrl+Left> becomes "move focus to first
column".

It's bad enough that Microsoft's vaunted usability labs have
disadvantaged my proficiency so deeply. But then MS corrupts youths
and upstarts.

I never could figure out how to get rid of the count-down meter in MS
Office (yes, we paid for it). So I downloaded OpenOffice, and I use it
instead for all the light spreadsheeting I need.

Because MS is the leader, OpenOffice faithfully reproduces all of
Excel's features, and it reproduces the <Left> bug.

Each time it bites me, I remember that it's MS's bug, not
OpenOffice's, and I remember that OpenOffice is too submissive to go
beyond MS's usability, and excel.

--
   Phlip
   http://www.greencheese.org/ZeekLand  <-- NOT a blog!!

---

From: agile-usability@yahoogroups.com [mailto:agile-usability@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Phlip
Sent: Friday, 4 November 2005 12:07 p.m.
To: agile-usability@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [agile-usability] follow the leader

AU:

Because I'm proficient at using GUIs with a keyboard, and I'm a sloppy
typist, Excel has a committed "feature" that drives me nuts.

When I type into a cell, I'm not really in edit-mode. I'm in some kind
of "add text" mode. We all know that GUI "modes" are bad. <F2>
switches to real edit mode.

When I type a mistake, I may catch it several words later. The most
efficient way to move the text caret back to the mistake is either
<Left> or <Ctrl+Left>. It's not <Backspace>, because I'm proficient.
I'm smart enough not to need to type all that text again just to edit
a mistake.

However, Excel interprets the <Left> as "move focus to cell in
previous column". Worse, <Ctrl+Left> becomes "move focus to first
column".

It's bad enough that Microsoft's vaunted usability labs have
disadvantaged my proficiency so deeply. But then MS corrupts youths
and upstarts.

I never could figure out how to get rid of the count-down meter in MS
Office (yes, we paid for it). So I downloaded OpenOffice, and I use it
instead for all the light spreadsheeting I need.

Because MS is the leader, OpenOffice faithfully reproduces all of
Excel's features, and it reproduces the <Left> bug.

Each time it bites me, I remember that it's MS's bug, not
OpenOffice's, and I remember that OpenOffice is too submissive to go
beyond MS's usability, and excel.

--
  Phlip
  http://www.greencheese.org/ZeekLand  <-- NOT a blog!!

Keith Nicholas wrote:

> so its less usable for you, are you implying its less useful for everyone?
> I personally find it quite useful I can enter text and arrow to the place I
> want to enter text next.  Which for me is the most common case...the times
> where I need to correct the text are much less frequent.  Then I usually
> just go to the edit box at the top and use the left arrow, cntrl arrow
> navigation system for text, but for cells, the arrow navigation to move
> around seems more natural to me.
>
> So, while your flaming Microsoft, do you know that they didn't study this
> and found which was more usable?

We are discussing a standard, the Common User Access, which predates
MS Windows (and the MS oligarchy). I don't think I flamed either of
them.

The stated purpose of the CUA is to make all windows on a desktop fit
together as a seamless coherent whole. Gone (hopefully) are the days
where only one program inserts text only as a special mode, and
defaults to overstriking, for example.

The CUA permits you to feel like your editing functions are a part of
your hands, not a part of the current application, or its specific
mode. This permits you to safely learn advanced edits (such as
<Ctrl+Left>) in one application and safely port your learning to
another.

To quote Larry Tesler, don't mode me in.

--
   Phlip
   http://www.greencheese.org/ZeekLand  <-- NOT a blog!!

so its less usable for you, are you implying its less useful for everyone?  I personally find it quite useful I can enter text and arrow to the place I want to enter text next.  Which for me is the most common case...the times where I need to correct the text are much less frequent.  Then I usually just go to the edit box at the top and use the left arrow, cntrl arrow navigation system for text, but for cells, the arrow navigation to move around seems more natural to me.

So, while your flaming Microsoft, do you know that they didn't study this and found which was more usable?

 

Regards, 

 

-- Alain:

I agree. I too rarely write long text inside of cells, but I very often need to write a series of numbers or short strings in adjacent cells. And <Left> and <Right> is the most natural way for me to do this.

 

I suspect this is a typical "no free lunch" situation. I bet when someone presses <Left> in excel, the same person will somethimes expect it to move to the previous character in the current cell, and sometimes they willl expect it to move to the previous cell. Moreover, I am willing to bet that the only thing that distinguishes these two situations is the intent buried inside the user's mind. In other words, there is nothing at all in the current system state or the history of recent actions by the user, that would allow the system to figure out what the user means.

 

So you have to choose one or the other. MS decided to go for <Left> = previous cell, and that turns out to be the right choice for me. I don't know about the majority of people, but as Keith points out, it COULD be that MS did some usability studies and found that this was the most common .

----

The CUA permits you to feel like your editing functions are a part of
your hands, not a part of the current application, or its specific mode.
This permits you to safely learn advanced edits (such as
<Ctrl+Left>) in one application and safely port your learning to
another.

-- Alain:
Standards and rules are made to be broken. Again, I don't know whether
or not MS did usability testing on this, but it certainly seem to be the
most usable thing for me, irrespectively of the fact that it is
non-standard behaviour.

Surely you are not saying that knowlege encoded in generic UI standards
should take precedence over application specific knowledge that was
acuiqired through usability testing for that specific application!
-----

Press F2 for your free lunch!

It moves the insertion point from the cell to the
formula bar, and standard editing conventions will now
apply.

JS



--- "Desilets, Alain" <alain.desilets@...>
wrote:

>  I suspect this is a typical "no free lunch"
> situation.

-- Alain:
Standards and rules are made to be broken. Again, I don't know whether
or not MS did usability testing on this, but it certainly seem to be the
most usable thing for me, irrespectively of the fact that it is
non-standard behaviour.

Surely you are not saying that knowlege encoded in generic UI standards
should take precedence over application specific knowledge that was
acuiqired through usability testing for that specific application!
-----

IMO that's not a free lunch at all because it requires me to switch
between modes.

Alain

-----Original Message-----
From: agile-usability@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:agile-usability@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Josh Seiden
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 9:22 AM
To: agile-usability@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [agile-usability] follow the leader


Press F2 for your free lunch!

It moves the insertion point from the cell to the
formula bar, and standard editing conventions will now
apply.

JS



--- "Desilets, Alain" <alain.desilets@...>
wrote:

>  I suspect this is a typical "no free lunch"
> situation.





Yahoo! Groups Links

Ash Donaldson wrote:

>  Actually, standards aren't meant to be broken, or they very quickly become
> non-standards.  It must be remembered that a standard is only as powerful as
> the percentage of the population that follows it.  Take for instance the ISO
> date format.  It's the most logical (and therefore, apparently usable for
> new users) format, both for numeric ordering and consistency.  It's of the
> form yyyy-mm-dd.  The majority of the world follows the reverse of this
> standard with dd-mm-yyyy, while the US somehow cam up with mm-dd-yyyy (?!?).
>  So how effective is the ISO standard?  It's completely ineffective, even
> though it's the most logical format, because the majority of the world does
> not follow it.

Just last night I wrote yyyy-Mmm-dd format on a check.

It would have been nicer if I had followed that other standard, and
wrote it in the date field instead of the amount field...

In the case of Excel, CUA already has the majority following. So
breaking the CUA, in one little mode, is very disruptive.

The topic I had hoped to raise is simple: If a market leader enforces
a bad usability decision, and the majority of the world follows it,
the market upstarts have the odious choice of either following the bad
lead, or breaking with tradition and risk looking bad.

How was this week's ZeekLand, everyone? ;-)

--
   Phlip
   http://www.greencheese.org/ZeekLand  <-- NOT a blog!!

I do a talk called "Violate Standards!" in which I
encourage designers to see these kind of de facto
"design standards" as opportunities for innovation.
The argument is this: where there is a standard answer
design answer, there is also likely an opportunity to
create a better solution.

The canonical example of this kind of critical
thinking is the error dialog. Designers should see
error dialogs--the standard way to present errors--as
an opportunity to design error-prevention systems into
the app, thus obviating the need for the standard
solution, and improving the user experience.

Of course, this works only as a thinking exercise, not
as a fundamental design strategy.

If anyone is interested in the slides, let me know.

JS
--- Phlip <phlip2005@...> wrote:


> The topic I had hoped to raise is simple: If a
> market leader enforces
> a bad usability decision, and the majority of the
> world follows it,
> the market upstarts have the odious choice of either
> following the bad
> lead, or breaking with tradition and risk looking
> bad.

Josh Seiden wrote:

> Of course, this works only as a thinking exercise, not
> as a fundamental design strategy.

The best editor I ever used was non-CUA. Rick Stiles's UEdit, for
AmigaDOS, had a usability envelop architected from scratch, with no
underlying GUI to introduce any systems. Rick simply took over an
Amiga screen and blitted text all over it.

The usability achieved the minimum keystrokes between any two points I
have ever seen. For example, UEdit's scripting language defined
BeginningOfWord as before the first character, and EndOfWord as after
the last. So the <Left> arrow mapped trivially onto BeginningOfWord,
and <Right> onto EndOfWord.

Yes, that's right. <Left> did not move the caret left over one
character. It would jump a whole word, and put the character right at
its beginning. Right would jump to the end of a word, and put the
character between it and any punctuation.

When you edit, this is where you most likely want to go. If you then
fine-tune your position, you use <Shift+Left> to move over one
character.

Incidentally, UEdit's scripting language built jargon like
"<Shift+Left>" directly into its keywords.

So on CUA, I would <Ctrl+Left> more often than <Left> even if I
weren't a sloppy typist. The wrong action is the default, and the
barrier to fixing this is much higher _because_ CUA is a "standard".

There are easier places to start. For example, on any CUA editor if
you type off the end of a window, the editor will scroll up one line,
and leave your caret scrambling against the bottom edge of the window.
You must scroll to put the caret at eye level, and to see any text
below the caret.

On UEdit, when you type off the end of a window, the caret would
scroll to the center of the window. This is the correct behavior, and
I never saw any editor since use it.

It should be really easy to add.

--
   Phlip
   http://www.greencheese.org/ZeekLand  <-- NOT a blog!!

-- Phlip wrote:
The best editor I ever used was non-CUA. Rick Stiles's UEdit, for
AmigaDOS, had a usability envelop architected from scratch, with no
underlying GUI to introduce any systems. Rick simply took over an Amiga
screen and blitted text all over it.

<SNIP>

The usability achieved the minimum keystrokes between any two points I
have ever seen. For example, UEdit's scripting language defined
BeginningOfWord as before the first character, and EndOfWord as after
the last. So the <Left> arrow mapped trivially onto BeginningOfWord, and
<Right> onto EndOfWord.

Yes, that's right. <Left> did not move the caret left over one
character. It would jump a whole word, and put the character right at
its beginning. Right would jump to the end of a word, and put the
character between it and any punctuation.

When you edit, this is where you most likely want to go. If you then
fine-tune your position, you use <Shift+Left> to move over one
character.

<SNIP>

So on CUA, I would <Ctrl+Left> more often than <Left> even if I weren't
a sloppy typist. The wrong action is the default, and the barrier to
fixing this is much higher _because_ CUA is a "standard".
----

-- Alain:
It's interesting that you would write this. What you are describing
above is in all respects equivalent to MS Excel defining <Left> as
meaning "move to the previous cell". In a spreadsheet context, moving
from one cell to an adjacent cell is more frequent than moving from one
character to an adjacent one. Yet, while you loved the fact that Uedit
assigned word navigation to the <Left> key, you hate the fact that Excel
assigns cell navigation to the <Left> key. OK, Excel does not even have
a separate key sequences (ex: <Ctr>+<Left>) for moving to the previous
character, but I gather that your annoyance was caused by the fact that
Excel overrode the standard meaning of <Left>.

So there must be something else that bothers you about the way MS Excel
supports cell vs character navigation with arrow keys. What is it?
----

-- jon

Ash Donaldson wrote:

<cut>
The topic I had hoped to raise is simple: If a market leader enforces
a bad usability decision, and the majority of the world follows it,
the market upstarts have the odious choice of either following the bad
lead, or breaking with tradition and risk looking bad.

How was this week's ZeekLand, everyone? ;-)

--
  Phlip
  http://www.greencheese.org/ZeekLand  <-- NOT a blog!!

Hi

I just tried this *bug*, and had no problem editing the text with the <left> and
<ctlr><left> features, you described as a bug.
I am using Excel version 9 SP3, so is it not maybe a setting somewhere in Excel?

Regards
   Anton


-----Original Message-----
From: agile-usability@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:agile-usability@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Phlip
Sent: 04 November 2005 01:07
To: agile-usability@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [agile-usability] follow the leader
....
When I type a mistake, I may catch it several words later. The most
efficient way to move the text caret back to the mistake is either
<Left> or <Ctrl+Left>. It's not <Backspace>, because I'm proficient.
I'm smart enough not to need to type all that text again just to edit
a mistake.

Confidentiality Warning
=======================

The contents of this e-mail and any accompanying documentation
are confidential and any use thereof, in what ever form, by anyone
other than the addressee is strictly prohibited.

I haven't used Excel much, but I remember having the opposite problem -- I am
editing a cell, and left-right moves the caret in the text. How do I go to the
previous cell?
And also, I had the problem the OP described. It all depended on what I was
doing, which was frustrating. I think Excel should behave the same no matter
what you were doing -- whether left moves the caret or changes cell, I wouldn't
care, I would get used to it. What bothers me is the different behaviour with no
significant visual cue that you are in a different mode.

Quoting "Desilets, Alain" <alain.desilets@...>:

> -- Alain:
> It's interesting that you would write this. What you are describing
> above is in all respects equivalent to MS Excel defining <Left> as
> meaning "move to the previous cell". In a spreadsheet context, moving
> from one cell to an adjacent cell is more frequent than moving from one
> character to an adjacent one. Yet, while you loved the fact that Uedit
> assigned word navigation to the <Left> key, you hate the fact that Excel
> assigns cell navigation to the <Left> key. OK, Excel does not even have
> a separate key sequences (ex: <Ctr>+<Left>) for moving to the previous
> character, but I gather that your annoyance was caused by the fact that
> Excel overrode the standard meaning of <Left>.
>
> So there must be something else that bothers you about the way MS Excel
> supports cell vs character navigation with arrow keys. What is it?
> ----



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Jon Kern wrote:

> Lotus 1-2-3

Now there's an example of slick usability that did everything _wrong_
by todays standards.

Everyone nowadays does Object->Action. First you select the object,
then you pick an action. Example: Select some cells, then Copy them.

In Lotus 1-2-3, you declare Copy, and get a Cell Selector Mode to pick
the cells to copy.

So the amazing thing was this got useful and intuitive, after you
start using it.

--
   Phlip
   http://www.greencheese.org/ZeekLand  <-- NOT a blog!!