A quick update to my last blog entry with the file dialog UrlEdit widget. At aKademy we got some usability testing done against this widget and found it to be quite bad. Users were not sure what would show up in the menu when you clicked on the triangles, the triangle hit area was too small and there didn't seem to be a way to get out of the editing mode. And that was just what I remember off the top of my head. Suffice it to say that idea is dead. I am quite surprised that the Vista guys hadn't discovered this through there own usability testing. A big surprise for me was just how well Gnomes (latest) file dialog did. Users were able to quickly move around and it wasn't confusing. Perhaps I hated the early version (from several years ago) when it first came out of it so much that blinded me to the refinements they have made. I wouldn't be too surprised if we put in the gnome buttons in our dialog and found the same user response improvements.
QUrlEdit update
»
- icefox's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- 848 reads
Syndicate Blogs
Simplify maybe?
I sorta like how the tree in WebSvn looks like. Example:
http://websvn.kde.org/branches/KDE/3.5/kdeutils/superkaramba/examples/
It doesn't have "active" separators, but it has the "correct-looking" separators.
Also, after some thought, I realized if I could jump to any path point, I don't really need the "active separators that let me choose a next folder" It just complicates things. Just having "hyperlink-able" path points would be good already
Gnome
Just pointing out to you that is pretty much the same idea as the gtk dialog. Showing a non editable list of things you can click on. But perhaps if we did it this way we wouldn't get support from the people who didn't like the very first gnome one.
For starters...
> the triangle hit area was too small and there didn't seem to be a way to get out of
> the editing mode. (..) I am quite surprised that the Vista guys hadn't discovered this
> through there own usability testing.
Well they have some subtile but important changes:
- their whole path is clickable, not just the arrow.
- their arrow points to the right, but down.
so you get: "home > user > documents > temp".
instead of: "home v user v documents v temp"
(note the arrow should be entirely closed)
Vista uses these widgets as location/breadbrumbs, to give the user an idea where we his. From that point of view, "home > user > documents" is much more user friendly then "/home/user/documents/". My grandma actually writes path separators as arrows for a long time, Vista displays it as such. Newbees don't seam to get slashes.
Only power users friddle with paths in a location bar. They'll be able to make use of the pull-down menu's to change the path elements (I found it very pleasant to work with in Vista). For all other users, there is the up-arrow and back/forward arrows.
re: for starters...
Well they have some subtile but important changes:
- their whole path is clickable, not just the arrow.
Mine was too. Each directory could be clicked on just like in vista. But we saw users just waiting for the buttons to appear before processing that they could do something with it (even though it was instantly appearing). Like when someone hovers one item at a time over a toolbar. This was strike contrast to the gtk dialog where the buttons were visible all the time and users would very quickly click without hesitation. It was taking way longer to move around in the vista widget.
- their arrow points to the right, but down.
so you get: "home > user > documents > temp".
instead of: "home v user v documents v temp"
(note the arrow should be entirely closed)
I think they even switch directions when you click on them in vista if I remember. Yes I didn't take the time to actually tweak that in my widget, but I don't think this would make too much of a different. We didn't test anyone who didn't know what a folder was.
All in one widget
What about the way that you combined it all in one widget? I have to say that I thought that was a big improvement.
all-in-one
you mean simply put a frame around the buttons?
I thought that it looked
I thought that it looked very clean and, as you said, clear that it was all for the same function, when you had it all in a combobox. Much clearer than a frame, even if the combobox idea isn't appropriate or especially usable...
As I said above in this blog
As I said above in this blog entry, it wasn't very good when I actually tested it. No matter how it looks if people can't actually use it then our guess was wrong, having them all in a box didn't help.
surprise, surprise
The Gnome file dialog sucked and does still suck. There is a reason that someone came up with KGtk¹. I mean, I use only two or three Gtk applications, but the very first thing after building a new desktop is to set the KGtk symlinks, so I don't start to get pissed by facing this crap. I'm far from saying that Gnome does everything wrong, but this is something I hate about it with passion.
[1] http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=36077
suckage
Can you name something specific about the Gtk file dialog that you don't like rather then being generic and saying it "sucks"?