A really good article on software usability

[Scott van Looy]

Today Tim did spake thusly:

> On Fri, 2007-01-05 at 10:18 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
>> Does your refrigerator ask you every time you are nearby if you would
>> like it to keep your food cool or not?  Instead of prompting every
>> time for whether or not you'd like to save or lose all your work,
>> why don't programs have a default for how many revisions you'd
>> like it to keep and always save all changes unless explicitly told
>> to exit without saving?
>
> Too much like that disastrous re-arrange your mess of the start menu on
> Windows (which wouldn't be needed if the thing was organised, in the
> first place).

Doesn't happen. You're mistaking the MRUA list for the start menu

> Users find, after a little while, that it's changed on them.  That's
> disconcerting, in itself.  They also have to go around hunting for
> things used occasinally, instead of just being able to find it.

As with everything it's configureable - the start menu doesn't change, the 
most recently used application list does - this is a new addition in XP, 
all they've done is make "All Programs" a submenu instead of it being the 
root. If you go to "All Programs" you get a list that doesn't change. It 
was deemed more sensible than simply hiding the less frequently used 
program items and having a "hey, where did my programs go?" bubble - the 
default in win2000. These days, Microsoft spend more time and energy user 
testing software than pretty much any other software company, their UI 
design tends towards being pretty good.

>> If it ends up saving work you wanted to throw away, then you'd have an
>> after-the-fact way to fix the unusual case instead of being bothered
>> every time selecting the obvious choice.
>
> That's not *too* bad, but the opposite is unacceptable.

Indeed.

-- 
Scott van Looy - email:me at ethosuk.org.uk | web:www.ethosuk.org.uk
site:www.freakcity.net - the in place for outcasts since 2003
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He was in the "Promise Land".
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