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From: erik@sravd.sra.JUNET (Erik M. van der Poel)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: Look and Feel? Or just Look?
Message-ID: <1468@sragwa.sra.co.jp>
Date: 21 Feb 90 06:18:00 GMT
References: <671@tci.bell-atl.com> <1907@cbnewsi.ATT.COM> <1990Feb14.201536.29437@sq.sq.com> <5348@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <1463@sragwa.sra.co.jp> <247@uucs1.UUCP> <1464@sragwa.sra.co.jp> <5379@crdgw1.crd.ge.com>
Sender: news@sragwa.sra.co.jp
Reply-To: erik@sra.co.jp (Erik M. van der Poel)
Organization: Software Research Associates, Inc., Japan
Lines: 44


In article <5379@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> Bruce Barnett writes:

> In article <1464@sragwa.sra.co.jp>, Erik M. van der Poel writes:
> 
> >Well, the fact that I didn't know about this just goes to show how
> >non-intuitive Motif's scrollbar is. :-(
> 
> I don't think this is a fair comment, because unless I misunderstand,
> OpenLook has the exact same model for paging forward/backward pages.

My comment was not intended to compare the Motif and Open Look
scrollbars. Have you read my previous article <1463@sragwa.sra.co.jp>?
In that article I implied that even the Open Look scrollbar's paging
is non-intuitive.

My modified Xw scrollbar has one area with two arrows, to go up or
down one line using the left and right mouse buttons, and it has one
area with a page symbol, which also responds to left and right mouse
buttons. The third area is just an ordinary slider.

The page area is intuitive, because the user can *see* that it is a
page.

Some people don't like having to use two mouse buttons to change the
direction of scrolling. Fair enough, everyone has different tastes,
right? But the reason that *I* like it is because I once caught myself
trying to change the scrolling direction in an Xw scrollbar by hitting
the other side of the mouse. This reflex action comes from the fact
that the X10R4 xterm scrollbar worked that way.

In "Window Systems Should Be Transparent" (Usenix Computing Systems,
Summer 1988), Rob Pike writes that "typing backspace becomes second
nature" for keyboard operators who correct mistakes, and "that people
do so subconsciously. That is the mark of a successful interface."

Rob Pike writes about lots of other things too, such as visual cues. I
think that his paper is a must for anyone interested in user
interfaces.


Erik M. van der Poel                  erik@sra.co.jp             (Japan)
SRA, 1-1-1 Hirakawa-cho, Chiyoda-ku   erik%sra.co.jp@uunet.uu.net  (USA)
Tokyo 102 Japan. TEL +81-3-234-2692   erik%sra.co.jp@mcvax.uucp (Europe)