Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!sun-barr!lll-winken!arisia!sgi!shinobu!odin!odin.corp.sgi.com!portuesi From: portuesi@tweezers.esd.sgi.com (Michael Portuesi) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: 1.4 Wish: Revamped sizing gadget Message-ID: Date: 19 Oct 89 15:34:58 GMT References: <4714@amiga.UUCP> <778@jc3b21.UUCP> <19743@ut-emx.UUCP> Sender: news@odin.SGI.COM Reply-To: portuesi@sgi.com (Michael Portuesi) Distribution: na Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mtn. View, CA Lines: 45 In-reply-to: jonabbey@walt.cc.utexas.edu's message of 18 Oct 89 06:40:35 GMT >>>>> On 18 Oct 89 06:40:35 GMT, jonabbey@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Jonathan Abbey) said: ja> I am quite eagerly looking forward to the new release, am most especially ja> looking forward for the new interface, but I'm not sure I like the sound of ja> this one button window depth mechanism. Admittedly, as an Amiga owner of ja> four years standing I'm an "old dog", but I really think I'll be less ja> comfortable with a one button depth arranger. Well, I'm an Amiga owner of only three years standing, so I can't "pull rank", but I think the one-button depth arranger is a great idea. ja> I hope Commodore does some user interaction ja> testing like Apple did while they were designing the Mac's interface, to see ja> which is the more efficient, and which people prefer. I'm not sure Apple did enough testing. Their interface is designed around the assumption that you will be using a 9-inch screen (pulldown menus, scrollbars on the righthand sides of windows instead of the left, trashcan in the lower corner of the Finder display, scroll arrows at opposite extremes of the scroll bar). The Apple interface becomes pretty difficult to use once you move to a Radius display, for example. The Apple file dialogs do not immediate indicate directory structure, nor do they indicate the mechanism for moving around in the directory hierarchy. In user testing of applications software that I performed for a class on user interface design, at least one of the users (a Mac novice) was completely befuddled by the standard Mac file dialog. The modality of Mac dialogs is also a problem. When a Mac dialog appears on the screen, access to menus, other windows, and depth arranging becomes impossible. I could go on, but suffice it to say that the Mac interface is not the usability dreamworld it is cracked up to be. --M -- __ \/ Michael Portuesi Silicon Graphics Computer Systems, Inc. portuesi@SGI.COM