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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Show/Hide vs Checkbox
From:       Diego Moya <turingt () gmail ! com>
Date:       2005-03-30 19:58:53
Message-ID: 11ee049405033011586766ff54 () mail ! gmail ! com
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On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 21:31:15 +0200, Wilco Greven
<j.w.greven@student.utwente.nl> wrote:
> Op woensdag 30 maart 2005 20:25, schreef Diego Moya:
> > Are you sure the menu says what's going to happen? How do you know
> > whether the menu is showing the current state?
> 
> I'm not sure if I understand your question, but when an item says "Hide
> Menubar" it means that executing it will hide the menubar.
The problem is that users really don't read text labels when they know
what the widget does. It's true that they don't. Using GUIs is habit
forming, and when it's formed the you work in auto-pilot and don't
read things. Reading the label only works when learning to use the
interface, but not after you have mastered it.

If you put several toggle menu items together (like in
Settings->Toolbars), the perceived meaning is "some of the toolbars
are shown, some are hidden". That is, the menu is showing the state of
the application, but then "Hide" and "Show" suggest to the user the
opposite to the current state - you see "show" when the toolbar is
hidden (which is weird), and the other way around.


> > > Two reasons against having toggle menu items which came out of that
> > > discussion are:
> > > - When an item is not checked, nothing indicates that it can be checked.
> >
> > ...unless you provide an empty box when it's not checked, like a
> > standard checkbox should do. Also the menu text describes the state
> > that you're going to have if you click on it.
> 
> Yes, that would be the correct solution for the problem.

Aaron won't agree to that! :-)

> 
> > My preferred solution would be to have *both* actions listed, and grey
> > out the one that is not applicable. > 
> It's a clear solution, but it will seem like a waste of space. That will
> certainly encounter some opposition.
It's not a waste if it happens to be the best solution and solve all
problems. That space represents some information that, otherwise,
should be processed by the user every time. The first GUI design
guideline is that you don't force users to make work that the computer
can do.  So that extra space in screen is saving space in the user's
mind, which (like a cache) is more expensive.
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