Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!think!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-sdd!nick
From: nick@hp-sdd.HP.COM (Nick Flor)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: subliminal feedback
Keywords: feedback windowing interfaces
Message-ID: <1685@hp-sdd.HP.COM>
Date: 20 Nov 88 04:56:03 GMT
References: <318@aratar.UUCP>
Reply-To: nick@hp-sdd.UUCP (Nick Flor)
Organization: Hewlett Packard, San Diego
Lines: 40

Chuck Clanton writes (>)

>here is what i conclude.  in general, when designing an object to display 
>data, i expect that the user wants the information and will acquire it
>intentionally.  it should be displayed so that it is easy to obtain when
>the user makes the effort to acquire it.  

Easy to obtain and understand...

>however, when designing an object for the user to work with, its feedback 
>properties should by and large be very quiet.  

But what does that mean?  If it's "quiet", you'll never notice the feedback.
When my mouse pointer isn't on the proper window, it's being quiet and yet 
this property doesn't insure that "focus" errors won't occur.  Clearly,
a mouse pointer not being in the window the user wants to work in is
quiet, but not good, feedback.  (You even mentioned that the information for
the windowing system you were using was on the side of the window and
you often missed it.  This is quiet feedback...)

I feel that the feedback necessary to operate the tool correctly, i.e.
the operational feedback, should be "loud" yet not interfere that much with
the user's acquisition of data from the tool, i.e. informational feedback.  
Also, the operational feedback should be apparent in the visual area of 
interest.

I think the problem is coming up with operational feedback that don't
interfere with the informational feedback.  I think some good examples are:

a) Ghosting the non-active windows.  This is the approach my Amiga takes.
   (ghosting is only displaying every other pixel)
b) Making the non-active windows have a red background, or rather a background
   color different from the active window.
c) Flashing the border of the non-active windows.

> Chuck Clanton

Or maybe we're just arguing about semantics...

Nick