From kde-usability Wed Aug 21 10:41:27 2002 From: Ryan Cumming Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 10:41:27 +0000 To: kde-usability Subject: [RFC] Clock Defaults X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-usability&m=102992655605902 Hi, Sparked by Matt's comments on the Kicker clock applet, I've decided to write down my thoughts on the subject. Firstly, I think that the blinking colon should be disabled by default, for two reasons: 1) It's useless visual noise; it distracts the user without providing any additional information. Using a computer is hard enough as it is. 2) Some system tray applications use a blinking icon to alert the user. The blinking colon interferes with the user's ability to determine if a nearby system tray icon is blinking without refocusing their attention to the system tray. When I used Licq regularly, I found that my ability to recognise its blinking message icon out of the corner of my eye was almost completely destroyed by the clock applet's blinking colon. Now, for the plain clock versus digital clock debate. I don't think the digital clock has particularly bad usability. My reasoning is that LCD-style numbers are very common in modern society, and strongly associated with timekeeping. There are, however, a few arguments that could be made for the plain clock: 1) It looks much cleaner. I'll agree with this wholeheartedly; I personally use a plain clock for this reason alone. 2) It automatically follows the users colour scheme. This is another strong argument, although I have never seen the digital clock conflict strongly with a particular colour scheme. 3) The LCD clock metaphor isn't as universal as I think; some people/cultures are not very good at reading LCD digits, and do not associate LCD digits with timekeeping. You could probably get me to agree with this one too; however, I can't think of a society that has computers but no digital watches. One problem I could see with the plain clock is that the user might not immediately associate the numbers he sees on the panel with the current time. The digital clock does one thing very well: it associates itself with the time using a physical metaphor. Could a user really be confused by the plain clock, even for an instant? -Ryan _______________________________________________ kde-usability mailing list kde-usability@mail.kde.org http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability