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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Show/Hide vs Checkbox
From:       Diego Moya <turingt () gmail ! com>
Date:       2005-03-30 20:12:45
Message-ID: 11ee04940503301212262bd307 () mail ! gmail ! com
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On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:50:59 -0700, Aaron Seigo <aseigo@kde.org> wrote:
> On March 30, 2005 19:34, Diego Moya wrote:
> > Do users know that in menus there are only actions?
> 
> generally they don't need to know these details consciously. if they do need
> to know these things, something is wrong.
You're 100% right. 

And then why should users know that the text in the menu label means
an action that is going to happen when clicked?



> > > good thing we aren't talking about buttons then, but menu entries which
> > > are inherently actions and use verbs to describe what they are doing.
> >
> > I'm of the opinion that menu entries are buttons: a button is
> > inherently a clickable widget that use verbs to describe in its label
> > the action performed.
> 
> i suggest you go around and present a menu and a button to users and ask them
> if they are different.
Go ask HCI designers. :-) In all the books that I've read, menu items
follow similar guidelines as buttons (and state menus are
discouraged).

> 
> on a purely logical level: the fact that we have checkboxes, mutually
> exclusive groups, submenus, etc, etc... shows that menus aren't buttons.

So do you think that all menu entries should be actions, or not? (I
think they should, but a toggle menu with a checkbox and no verbs is
not that bad - sometimes).


> > A toggle button is the same as a checkbox, as long as its label
> > doesn't change.
> 
> a toggle button is not nearly as obvious in communicating its state as a
> checkbox is.

Usually true, but in some cases a good visual design can effectively
show whether it's pressed or not.

> 
> > If the label changes, well, you know what happens.
> 
> and just to be completely pedantic about it, we (and Windows for that matter)
> do have buttons that change their labels rather effectively: "Options >>" ...
Does the label show state in that case? *Might* the label be thought
as describing the application's state?


> --
> Aaron J. Seigo
> Society is Geometric
Huh? I though it was topologic! :-)
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