Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!ames!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!kth!sunic!sics.se!ollef
From: ollef@osiris.sics.se (Olle Furberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Is MacWrite II really user Friendly? (Was: "Re: MS Word 4.0...")
Keywords: interface guidelines, macwriteII, claris
Message-ID: <2661@osiris.sics.se>
Date: 6 May 89 18:31:28 GMT
References: <1860@aucs.UUCP> <10094@claris.com>
Reply-To: ollef@sics.se (Olle Furberg)
Organization: SICS
Lines: 34

In article <10094@claris.com> krazy@claris.com (Jeff Erickson) writes:
>
>Our user interface is one of the *best* (cleanest, most consitent, easiest
>to learn) I've seen for any Macintosh program.  I have my share of problems
>with it, but overall I think the people who designed the interface did a
>wonderful job.  [I wish I were one of those people.  Oh well.  There's always
>the next version.... :-)]
>

 I've got a demoversion of MWII. Obviously I haven't used it very much because
it cant print nor save documents. (WriteNow 2.0 has a demo that allows you to
both save and print.)
 When I've played around for some minutes I found that MWII does not follow the
Interface guidlines:
 
  When I select "Find/Change" I get a small window with 4 rounded buttons, 2
radio buttons and 2 checkboxes. If I check the box named "Case Sensitive"
nothing special happens, but when I check the box named "Use Attributes" the
whole window is replaced with a new window!
  This is not in accordance with the MacInterface: "Radio buttons and check
boxes are for setting values or properties of something; they should'nt be
used to perform an action". 
  The same window has a zoombox in the upper right corner, this box should
only be used to change the _size_ of the window. But this window is not
resizeable! When you click at the zoombox, once again you get a new sort
of window.

 I would be very suprised if these things are the only violation of the
MacInterface guidelines in MWII.
  I use a lot of different programs on the Mac. I don't have time to read a
300 p manual for every program. When I use a program that does'nt follow the
usual interface I always get a feeling of uncertainty. I bought my Mac because
of the interface, PLZ DON'T DESTROY THE USER FRIENDLY INTERFACE!! 
 OK, this time it was rather small defects. But next time...?