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From: straka@ihlpf.ATT.COM (Straka)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Poor Mac Design Philosophy (was blinking apple)
Message-ID: <2473@ihlpf.ATT.COM>
Date: Mon, 12-Oct-87 09:24:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpf.2473
Posted: Mon Oct 12 09:24:13 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Oct-87 06:37:26 EDT
References: <1076@houtz.UUCP> <21205@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <400@sdics.ucsd.EDU>
Reply-To: straka@ihlpf.UUCP (55223-Straka,R.J.)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 28
Keywords: Mac design blinking apple

In article <400@sdics.ucsd.EDU> norman@sdics.UUCP (Donald A. Norman) writes:
>available, perhaps a context sensitive pop-up menu.  Suppose
>shift-option-command-? always brought up a context sensitive listing
                                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>of what power keys were available at the moment. Make learning easier.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>And if you liked, you could use the menu and bypass the contortions.

It appears that the above (although perhaps a bit difficult to implement at this
point in time) is a lucid and clear way of handling the problem.
However, the user interface could become rather clumbsy when forced to make
additional menu choices *all* the time.

Perhaps instead of "always", however, a standard menu item under the "apple"
menu (like "About ...") could be used to detail the options (a separate menu
pick would be necessary to tell the application what action would be
requested).

Another alternative would be to have a single key (like "option") or
combination always (perhaps under the users pre-selected control) bring up
the list when the function is executed.  This might be more practical.

Come on, all you human-factors types at Apple.  A bit of polishing of this
aspect of the Human-Machine interface would be appreciated!
-- 
Rich Straka     ihnp4!ihlpf!straka

Advice for the day: "MSDOS - just say no."