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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: E-Mail Scrolling in KMail/Kontact
From:       Sven Burmeister <sven.burmeister () gmx ! net>
Date:       2005-03-23 20:11:34
Message-ID: 200503232111.35750.sven.burmeister () gmx ! net
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Hi!

Am Mittwoch, 23. März 2005 20:44 schrieb seele@obso1337.org:
> im not arguing that a users former experience will effect the way they use
> and interface.  but any aspect of a gui could be an experience, from using
> the menus, or keyboard shortcuts or scrolling through a list of items.

That is why it is that hard to find out what is intuitive and not just "being 
used to", which is why psychologists have at least two years of just learning 
how to set up test that are not biased by anything.

> for example, lets take kde usage.  if someone is familiar with using kde,
> they would be familiar with using kmail, regardless of if they have used
> mail client before or not.  all kde apps (in theory) should have a certain
> degree of consistency in certain behaviors, including something like
> scrolling through a list.  users coming to interact with kmail would have
> former experience and would expect to interact with a list (regardless if
> its in a pane or if it is a list of emails) similarly.

They would expect to interact with the list in the same way as they 
experienced before IF there are no hints given that tell them otherwise. So, 
if the current keys are more efficient and just lack the hint they would be 
the best solution, although they do not correspond to the "usual way". And 
because of the hint, they are no less intuitive than up/down. As I said 
before, the hint is missing and must be added before testing.
Please do not focus to much on telling me that a list is used in an up/down 
way, because I know it, yet a text is used in an up/down way too and you know 
it. So the question is: given the hint (by the GUI), which keys do people 
use?
Intuitive is what is best hinted to, not what is consided normal, as the 
article about what is intuitive, tries to explain.

If a user being used to up/down cannot easily adapt to the left/right keys 
there certainly is an issue and up/down should be offered as an alternative. 
Same goes the other way around.

If a user that never used a GUI like that before has no problems with 
left/right the keys seem to be intuitive (given the hint is placed in the 
GUI!), yet one does not know if they are as efficient/intuitive as the 
up/down alternative.

If a user being used to up/down gets to know the left/right keys and thinks 
that they are more efficient, they are superior to the up/down, as their 
advantages did even overcome the "being used to". BTW, there were several 
postings stating this case.

If a user being used to left/right gets to know the up/down keys and thinks 
that they are more efficient, they are superior to the left/right. This case 
was not stated yet.

Sven
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