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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: gnome2 button ordering
From:       Dave Leigh <dave.leigh () cratchit ! org>
Date:       2002-02-28 12:11:20
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On Thursday 28 February 2002 01:09, Navindra Umanee wrote:
> I thought this might be a good flame topic for this list:
>
> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-list/2002-February/msg00317.html
>
> (start of thread:
> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-list/2002-February/msg00278.html )

Sure, I'll bite, but briefly.

In reading the document I clearly got the clear impression that the GNOME 
team is doing battles with dragons that the KDE team slew 2 years ago (or 
tamed into a nice mascot) .

The author goes through a lot of argument to support the changing of the 
order of the GNOME buttons. Without exception the reasoning is weak and 
academic. Weak because at the most he's looking at a savings of milliseconds, 
which in an open or save dialog is effectively equal to nothing; and academic 
because speed is not the be-all-end-all of good UI design. Clarity and 
consistency are.

Interestingly, his illustrations are better than his arguments. One thing I 
do agree with is absolutely clear labeling of dialog buttons. For instance, 
"Save" and "Don't Save" buttons are better in principle than "OK" and 
"Cancel" because the button's purpose can't be misinterpreted due to poor 
wording on the dialog. The order of the buttons is secondary to their clarity 
of purpose and the consistency of their placement with the context of the 
environment (here I agree with the author). However, it's important that the 
buttons chosen agree with the text of the dialog (or vice versa). For 
example, it would NOT be proper to use "Save" and "Don't Save" if the 
question requires a "Yes" or "No" answer (as in his example). "Save" and 
"Don't Save" are proper answers for a question like, "What should I do with 
this modified document?" but NOT for "Do you want me to save this document?"

Also I'd like to point out that in the GUISE of arguing that the 
"KDE/Windows" way isn't always the best way, the author is REALLY arguing for 
"Anything but Windows". Again, the actual ordering is insignificant compared 
to clarity and consistency. Therefore the weak and academic reasoning 
supports an argument to do it differently for the sake of being different, 
which is actually weaker than the lemming approach which is superior if for 
no other reason than it promotes consistency.

> There does seem to be a lot of thought being put in GNOME2 usability.
> And from what I've seen from screenshots, the Ximian GNOME2 CC is a
> *huge* improvement over GNOME1 CC.  Apparently, they've cut out quite
> a bit of options though, so I wonder how their userbase will react.

Probably more enthusiastically than I. Of course, anything that gets GNOME up 
to the standard we KDE users already enjoy can only improve life. I wish them 
well.

-- 
dave.leigh@cratchit.org
http://www.cratchit.org

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.
		-- Francis Bacon

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