[Sugar-devel] [DESIGN] Instant palette popdown - a usability improvement

[Sam Parkinson]

Hi Tony,

On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 8:58 PM, Tony Anderson <tony_anderson at usa.net> 
wrote:
> Hi Sam
> 
> I like the Google apps button on the Google main page and the menu 
> button at the far right of the Firefox toolbar. They show as a popup 
> and have
> plenty of screen space for icons and larger font sizes. This could 
> support a design in which a left-click always causes an action and a 
> right-click is required
> to open up the 'palette' This is done well on the standard toolbar.
> 
> On the Home View, for instance. I would prefer that left-clicking on 
> the icon launches the activity (new start). The tooltip shows the 
> name of the activity (and nothing else). A right-click can open a 
> list of instances available to be resumed. Using the Google or 
> Firefox style, the list of instances can look exactly like the 
> corresponding entry in the Journal.

I think that if we make palettes right click only, we loose an 
important discoverability aspect.  Do you find the hover-to-open 
helpful or harmful to discoverability in your experience?

I also think that the homeview palettes are a special case.  We aren't 
going to be able to add more items or elaberation to the running 
activity palettes, or the buddy palettes.  If we wanted to make the 
journal more intergrated with the homeview, couldn't we just replace 
the homeview with an enhanced journal?  (Did we discuss this on list? 
[1])

I find the idea of a larger font size interesting.  Is the current 
palette font size too small?  It is also important to remember that any 
font size increase makes the distance you need to move the mouse 
bigger, which could be a negative.

Thanks,
Sam

[1]  https://www.sam.today/blog/sugar-nohomeview-design.html
> 
> 
> Tony
> 
> On 05/26/2016 12:44 PM, sam at sam.today wrote:
>> Hi All,
>> 
>> A while ago, I dropped a mention on the list to how many users found 
>> the palette system confusing, at least in my usability testing 
>> experiment.
>> 
>> I recently wrote this up, with a more detailed rational;  
>> https://www.sam.today/blog/sugar-with-instant-palettes/
>> 
>> I invite you to comment on this.  This could be an interesting 
>> change for sugar (0.)110.
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Sam
>> 
>> 
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> 
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