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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Is "What's this ?" help efficient ?
From:       Ryan Cumming <ryan () spitfire ! gotdns ! org>
Date:       2004-08-15 17:30:50
Message-ID: 200408151030.59998.ryan () spitfire ! gotdns ! org
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On Sunday 15 August 2004 09:51, Gérard Delafond wrote:
> I think "What's this ?" is under-used because people don't know the
> mechanism it works and find it is difficult to use:
I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that "What's This" help is very 
sparsely implemented in KDE. I know how the mechanism works, but I've come to 
expect that 90% of widgets won't have any useful help information set.

> Imagine there would be a litte icon next to the label. This icon could be a
> buoy or a question mark.
> A simple click on it would launch the "What's this" help.
> If the "What's this" does not exist, there would be no icon.
That might be workable for some very problematic widgets, but doing it 
automatically would add too much clutter and confusion. If a widget's use is 
so unintuitive that you're motivated to add a widget dedicated to explaining 
its function, maybe it's time to rethink your UI.

> Other idea : in the tooltip, there would be a "More help" label.
That would require some pretty fundamental changes to how tooltips work. Right 
now they disappear as soon as you move the cursor off the tooltip'ed widget. 
Putting clickable items on the tooltip would require them to persist after 
the mouse leaves the widget somehow, to give the user time to reposition the 
cursor over the tooltip.

-Ryan

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