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

[Tony Anderson]

I don't know. The current hover-to-open is very confusing to new users. 
It is particularly annoying when the menu disappears while you are trying
to move the cursor to it. Using clicks makes opening the menu persistent 
until another click rather than dependent on the cursor position.

I am still a fan of the original Sugar UI in which the primary operation 
was to click on an icon. This also significantly reduces the dependence 
on translation
since young learners quickly remember the icons and what they are for.

If tooltips were used for the hover, the user could get the name of an 
activity before clicking. This is one discrete piece of information 
rather than a
complex set of information.

I think the Journal should be less integrated to the Home View. An 
activity is a tool. Launching an activity is taking the tool from the 
box. The Journal
is where work-in-progress or completed-work is stored. The user easily 
understands to start a new project, open in the Home View. To resume a 
work-in-progress, click on the object in the Journal. The 'save as' and 
'screenshot' features help by having the user name the project so it can 
be quickly found
in the Journal.

Currently, it is very helpful that the icon of the activity which will 
be launched from the Journal is shown. If it is correct the user has 
only to click on the icon.
If a different activity is needed (e.g. a screenshot to be modified in 
Paint), the user right-clicks on the icon and selects the paint activity.

The buttons in Google and Firefox essentially take up as much of the 
screen as desired. This gives the freedom to show larger icons and use 
larger
fonts.

Tony

On 05/28/2016 02:18 PM, Sam Parkinson wrote:
> 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
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Sugar-devel mailing list
>>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>
>
>
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