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From: Lawson.English@p88.f15.n300.z1.fidonet.org (Lawson English)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Disabling menus when DA's are closed
Message-ID: <5270.27E5874C@stjhmc.fidonet.org>
Date: 17 Mar 91 06:20:13 GMT
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Brain in Neutral writes in a message to All

BIN> You'd be surprised what can confuse users. For instance, one 
BIN> might ask "why does this stupid machine let me select Edit menu 
BIN> items when there's nothing to edit? Huh? Huh?" 
BIN> Remember, some people do not even understand how to double-click, 
BIN> even after several sessions of working on a Macintosh. (Yes, 
BIN> I observe this.

I thought about my reply later and came to the same conclusion (silly me, follow
the Human Interface Guidelines!). I've met several people who don't consider
themselves Mac experts: "I've attended a few seminars, but I don't understand
much about using it yet..."

Speaking of UserInterface violations, did you read the "Hot Keys" artcle in
Spring Issue of MacTech Journal? It gives an "intuitive" way of adding hot keys
to dialogs by searching the control list for titles and allowing the user to
press the first letter of the title to activate the button. "o" for "OK" and
"c" for "Cancel" are the examples given. Shades of Windows! (This article is
a Norton Utilities plug, BTW). I guess none of the programmers remembered that
cmd-C and cmd-O already had meanings, or maybe we are supposed to remember that
whilest using Norton, these keys have new, non-standard meanings (my "intuitive"
way of using "hot keys" is to press the command key first, but I guess I'm not
part of their targeted market).

It's all part of a MicroSoft plot to dilute the Mac by making it more Windows-like...


Lawson

Lawson

 

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