“Mr Shrap” has written an interesting write-up on a (still) touchy topic: the button order adopted in Gnome 2 and why he doesn’t like it.
On the Button Order of Gnome 2
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Personally, I don’t see how it matters. To me, it feels more “natural” to have the “OK” button (or whatever button is more likely to be clicked), to the right of the dialog box, but one way or the other, I think most people are quite capable of reading “ok” or “cancel” and clicking accordingly.
i like it the way it is, i got used to it in no time.
I couldn’t figure out why the Gnome picture looked so weird until I realized that the author has chosen two pictures that do not represent the same situation. When closing an app in Gnome, with unsaved changes, the dialog presents you with:
Don’t Save / Cancel / Save — in that order
vs KDE’s
Save / Discard / Cancel
The other problem with the author’s argument is that he paints the debate as Windows vs. Mac, which is ridiculous. KDE and Gnome should not limit or define themselves with respect to another OS. What they should do is agree on a single way so that they’re compatible with each other. Who cares what Windows or Mac is doing?
For what it’s worth, I like Gnome’s way better.
Honestly, why can’t this be a customization option in toolkits (I’m talking to Qt/KDE and the GTK+ people here) to choose the button order? That seems like the best thing to do.
And for what it’s worth, I hate the GNOME way.
Oh, come on! Never link a news article to Geocities!
Anyway, who the hell cares about the button order. I switch back and forth between Windows/OS X/GNOME quite regularly at work, and I can click the buttons just fine because I can read.
I think he really nailed that “rant”. Whenever I read articles or blog entries by the Gnome Gurus they come across as being very full of themselves. The smart solution would be to allow the users to select their own preferred style – but that would go against the “don’t let the users tweak gnome” religion.
This guy took 2 completely different dialogs and compared them as if they were the same. Plus he seems to forget most people are right handed and when using their mouses it’d seem more natural to go to the button on the right.
As for the comparison to Windows or Mac it’s stupid. KDE or GNOME should do whatever they feel is best, Apple doesn’t look at someone elses designs and decide to do it the same way or the extact opposite just for the hell of it and nither should KDE or GNOME developers.
I don’t mean to be a troll here, but this seems like a “I personally don’t like this so i’m going to ramble on about it” type of article.
People need to realize that there is a right and a wrong way to do things, no matter what someone is used to. Some of these situations, like the one in the article, seem a bit trivial, but they all add up to a good or bad experience.
I like the most used button to the right, because all my scroll bars are to the right, I am right handed, and I read from left to right, keeping what I am reading to the left of the screen. All these add up to my mouse staying more to the right than the left. Same reason Apple choose to put the desktop icons on the left instread on the right. You read from left to right, so you want what you are working on to start on the left of the screen…why start reading in the middle of the screen? Then you put the icons on the left so you can always access them without moving windows around. This in turn keeps the mouse to the right, so that’s where the scrollbars go. The arguement to this would be that the scrollbars should go on the left because when you work on something your tools, which are usually up top, with the menubar, means that you mouse will hover around the this area. The tools and menu items go from left to right, like you read, so you would want the scrollbar closest to the left, where your common tools are. This sounds well and good until you use it daily. When you work on something without tools in that one layout, the scrollbars put too much activity in an area where you should be focusing on the content.
I could go on an on, but it’s pointless. The real answer comes in making it all customizable, then letting you carry your preferences with you from computer to computer.
Okay, frankly, I don’t care what the order the buttons are in, but let’s just look through his rant…
First, we start of with his reason for supporting either method:
Gnome button order: Apple uses it
KDE button order: The de-facto standard in computing world (i.e. Windows uses it)
Let’s ignore all other common sense, and basically his point is that because it’s something that Apple does, Gnome does it. He then goes on to say that any other reason is “just expalanations thrown in to support one’s pre-chosen opinion“. So this means every other reasons you can present in support is not a real reason, but simply one constructed to support your stance.
Because no one could base their decision on this stuff beforehand.
Let’s look at his “Gnome point of view” (where he points to a “nasty flame-letter” that was in response to a “nasty flame-letter” that basically said “show me the research, but don’t quote from company X, Y, or Z”.). Anyways, he goes on to contradict himself (“The only reason Gnome people could even suggest their current button order is because Apple already did it. “ to “The scientific rationale used by people supporting the Apple/Gnome button order is the following: “People’s eyes tend towards the upper-left and lower-right corners. Therefore the action button should be located there.” This seems like a reasonable thought process”) by suggesting that the Gnome people’s only excuse for the button order is because Apple does it this way. Then he goes on to tell you the Gnome person’s reasoning behind why they chose it. Of course, it’s not the reasoning he presents.
“The only large scale research I know of that supports the above argument is made by, you guessed it, Apple.”
This, he suggests, is the smoking gun. That Apple is the only company to have done research. First, you can go ahead and read his arguments against the Gnome reasons for button placement are basically “what-if’s”, arguments that have no basis in fact, and merely speculation. Basically, when presented with fact, he has nothing to back up his opinion. You can’t sit there and say “All this research is bogus because I say so.” Okay, yes, you can, but if you are going to debate it, you can’t be taken seriously. The least he could have done is backup his side with proof. He doesn’t. You can argue against proposed fact by saying “Yeah, but the test wasn’t big enough/didn’t cost enough/was done by a company that doesn’t want to have a nice GUI”.
As a note, many usability experts backup what Apple researched.
Next, he attempts to use the HIG itself against Gnome. The contention here is that Gnome (and KDE) applications should behave like Window applications.
Now, he finally does bring some outside fact into it quote Nielsen (who, btw, supports the above contention that he argued against and said he knew that only Apple had researched the fact). He makes a compelling argument, but doesn’t really back anything up.
Point of fact: Wasn’t their a usability test done a while back comparing Gnome and KDE usability, and didn’t Gnome come out ahead? Not because it emulated Windows, but because it was substantially different that people didn’t expect it to work like Windows?
That’s the danger he doesn’t bring out: If your UI looks like Windows, acts like Windows, but isn’t Windows, you are most likely doing your audience an injustice by suggesting that it will work just like Windows. It doesn’t.
Finally, as a final blow, he goes on to say “Apple’s research justifying their button order was done in the early 80s, probably on total computer neophytes. Doing the tests now using test subjects that have at least basic computer skills would most likely yield very different results.“. I am sorry, but to sit there and make assumptions is rather difficutl to do when you have no credentials to back it up. “What-if” arguments don’t hold up.
This is not to say that Gnome or KDE are right. Just that if you intend to rant about it, and then post it to OSNews, (which I am assuming he did), back up what you have to say with more than just “well, I have no idea what I am doing, but let me tell you what I think”. Debate is a skill, and this person doesn’t have it.
If all apps were GNOME apps, the button ordering would be a non-issue. However, GTK+/GNOME apps are used with other apps that have the “OK” button before the “Cancel” button. This means that the user has to remember that GTK+/GNOME apps are different, and act accordingly. That’s one more think to remember, one extra context switch to be made.
Like most detractors, the author misses a crucial part of the guidelines: The most important part of the guidelines is that our dialogue buttons are based on verbs. Actions. Explicit commands. It’s not about “Yes/No” or “OK/Cancel”. Once you make the leap to action-based dialogue buttons, it starts to become clear why a consistent approach to button location matters. And that’s why the guidelines suggest “affirmative on the right, negative beside, other actions to the left”.
When detractors reduce it down to “the buttons are the wrong way around”, they’re missing much of the point, and all of the usability benefits.
I’ve tested this out on real users. They were able to understand and make decisions based on the GNOME style dialogues far faster than the “design-free” dialogues you’ll see in Windows. They were also *relieved* to adjust to them when shown different styles – “these ones make so much more sense!”
<sarcasm> I don’t know about you guys but when I have to drive a car that’s not my own and the placement of the controls are different, I totally break down. I absolutely refuse to drive a car with the lights on the right and the wipers on the left. It just doesn’t make any sense at all. <sarcasm>
This is only to make a point…not trying to be rude. Why are we so concerned with such things in computer interfaces? The rest of the world has similar issues with other interfaces but without the controversy.
“The other problem with the author’s argument is that he paints the debate as Windows vs. Mac, which is ridiculous. KDE and Gnome should not limit or define themselves with respect to another OS. What they should do is agree on a single way so that they’re compatible with each other. Who cares what Windows or Mac is doing?”
I would agree that the main thing is to get the free Unix desktop to agree on one way of doing this. But as the article states gtk is supposed to be cross platform, mening it runs on windows too, the order matters.
Personally I really don’t care as long it is consistant for all applications on the free desktop.
The “button order” is by-design. You can’t have an option for “reverse the button order”, it just doesn’t work – the reversed button order would piss you off even more! A while back, someone tried to insist that GTK+’s Right-To-Left language adjustment feature would be the perfect way to make this an option. They tried it. And then finally realised that GNOME’s dialogue design has nothing to do with “reversing the button order” at all! 🙂
OK, linking to a geocities site on a tech news site is wrong in so many ways. The biggest way is that Geocities has transfer limits!
I can’t see the page
.
There is nothing new or interesting in the article, just a rather agressive summary of the anti arguments (yes, the whole two of them).
I personally don’t want to buy a Mac just to use a somewhat sane user interface, thank you very much. The whole “no interface on the earth should dare to change the status quo” is kinda not thrilling me.
The biggest advantage of the new layout isn’t that “OK is on the right”, but that the main button (which usually should not even be called “OK”) is always at the same place (relative to the corner), regardless how many buttons are displayed. He completely fails to even realize this point or that the KDE dialog isn’t just “left to right”, it’s actually “spread about the entire dialog” which makes it even harder to cognitively learn the button positions.
Yes it’s ugly if a single application on my desktop uses a different layout, but that’s one of the least problems I have with applications not following the GNOME HIG. It also doesn’t become less ugly by making it consistently ugly.
“This is only to make a point…not trying to be rude. Why are we so concerned with such things in computer interfaces? The rest of the world has similar issues with other interfaces but without the controversy.”
Well using your car analogy, doing things the most intuitive way makes one driving experience better than another. A vent that blows air on your body is just fine, it warms you up, move it a few inches up and it’s still warming, but it blows in your face and dries out your eyes. Sure you can adjust it, but if it were a button you couldn’t.
“Personally I really don’t care as long it is consistant for all applications on the free desktop.”
BINGO!!! Even if it’s done wrong, it’s better than being inconsistant.
i couldn’t read the article (over it’s bandwidth allowance.. *sigh*) so i really don’t know the extent of the person’s argument, aside from reading what people here are saying. but the article notwithstanding, i think if anyone is missing “the point”, i’d include your comment in that bunch.
you are completely correct that having a consistent layout is very important, and that action oriented buttons are better than “Yes/No”. that’s exactly why KDE has had those recommendations in their UI guidelines and implemented in the KDE libs for a *long* time. so this much i think we all agree on. =)
but the real point is that the choice that GNOME made in their layout recommendation has created a general inconsistency within the Free Software body of software. that’s the travesty, and that’s why the choice was a poor one IMHO.
not because it recommends action buttons, not because Windows does it differently (or Mac does it similarly), not because it suggests a consistent layout, but because the implementation has made running GNOME and non-GNOME Free Software side by side less usable due to the inconsistent layout.
i’m not sure if you or others in the GNOME project are all that worried about the world outside of GNOME, but i know that i and a lot of others are and that is the source of our concern. does that make sense to you?
fortunately it isn’t a HUGE GIGANTIC problem, but it was a step in the wrong direction in a moment when usability was otherwise being improved. =(
Just color code the buttons then it really won’t matter what order they’re in. Like green for OK and red for NO or CANCEL. The human eye is more likely to recognize colors and shapes faster than reading text.
The only problem with my idea is that it’s not accessible to people with vision problems who can’t decern colors properly. I’m only suggesting a button with a colored background on the widget itself, with the text in the middle as usual.
I understand that argument, and have heard it before. However, other major Free Software desktop components are quickly adopting GNOME’s guidelines. They’re that good. So, someone always has to take a bullet to drive things forward, and in retrospect, I’m glad we did.
[begin-quote]
OK, linking to a geocities site on a tech news site is wrong in so many ways. The biggest way is that Geocities has transfer limits!
I can’t see the page
.
[end-quote]
Indeed it’s wrong, not to mention stupid, but judging by comments from other users here we aren’t missing much by not seeing it.
In fact, I’d probably say that there’s more insight here on the topic than there (presumably) was on the GeoSh1ties page
They are color coded. That is the point. The HIG is *that* good. It took care of that. Stuff like Cancel and Don’t Save are (nearly) always in red. And the save button has a nice picture of a stiffy drive.
If all apps were GNOME apps, the button ordering would be a non-issue. However, GTK+/GNOME apps are used with other apps that have the “OK” button before the “Cancel” button. This means that the user has to remember that GTK+/GNOME apps are different, and act accordingly. That’s one more think to remember, one extra context switch to be made.
Well, to be fair, the same argument could be used against KDE: GNOME users have to rememeber that QT/KDE apps are different. It’s not because a majority is using a way that it’s automatically the best and that everybody should use it.
I think the guy is right……at least for english speaking people (yes/no) and those whose language is read left to write. The steering wheel of my car is on the left as well; I’ve never tested this but I have a feeling that if I were to attempt to drive a car with the steering wheel on the right, it would feel a bit odd at first….although I feel certain that it could still be done. That being said I use Gnome…..but I always have found the button order odd. Of course for those whose native language reads right to left then I’m sure if feels quite natural.
This is one of the things I truly love about Gnome. Honestly, I don’t care where their HIG came from, it works. The simplicity of Gnome keeps me coming back to GTK/Gnome based apps. I tend not to use Gnome itself as a desktop environment because I feel it’s bloated, but I use a number of GTK2 and Gnome apps and furthermore, make it a point to NOT use QT/KDE applications for the reason that Gnome apps simply feel more comfortable. I like the unified feel of my desktop, and I love what Gnome has done to make it’s HIG work so well… copying apple or not, it works for me and that’s what matters. To those who comment that this causes problems when people have mixed applications, some QT/KDE others GTK/Gnome… well you can’t argue that Gnome shouldn’t do their buttons this way unless you’re willing to admit maybe QT/KDE should. The day that QT/KDE can import GTK2 themes and uses Gnome’s HIG is the day that I start using QT/KDE applications.
Colour coding in computers is a major problem for a number of reasons:
1. Colours mean different things in different cultures. While Red typically equates to ‘No’ for us, I don’t have enough data to be sure it doesn’t mean ‘Yes’ in Indonesia. The same is true of checkboxes, ironically… Does a crossed box mean approval, or does the cross mean ‘No’? Each person’s colour set ranges vary depending on their preconditioning, and some languages, such as Welsh have an ambiguity that fails to define in certain circumstances whether a colour is actually of a class that we define it to be in using English.
2. 1 in 7 people is colourblind, normally red/green, less often, red/blue. Rarely, others.
3. Some people have broken monitors.
4. Some people need to minimise interface colour due to graphical work; where OS colouring distorts colour perception after a time. Graphical designers have serious problems with this, and this is why any good modern OS/DE will allow you to make icons and widgets greyscale.
5. Some people can’t distinguish certain colours because their lighting conditions are bad.
6. Heavy use of high-contrast colour can be jarring and exacerbate interface shouting. In some cases of anxiety and mental disorder, this can cause issues for the user moreso than the normal Yes/No, which in turn is worse than precise naming Save/Don’t Save.
I like the fact that the Don’t Save button is far removed from the Cancel and Save buttons in Mac OS X. It makes it a lot harder to miss with disastrous results.
The reason why many don’t find the button order intutitive is because most languages read from Left-to-Right. When you put the primarily action button (e.g. OK etc) on the right … one’s subcoscience notices this is not abnormal.
I dont’ really care the order of the buttons in GNOME but I want an option to disable the stock icons on it, Windows and Mac does’t use the stock icons, I not saying its wrong because some people may like it, but I’d really like the option to have buttons w/o stock icons.
> some people may like it, but I’d really like the option to
> have buttons w/o stock icons.
GTK+ 2.4 actually has that option.
The reason I find it unnatural is in speech and writing, people literally always say “yes or no?”. I have never ever heard somebody say something like “Do you want one? No or yes?”. It sounds plain weird.
Dawnrider: I think you’re really distracting from your point with pedantic arguments such as some people have broken monitors and some people have bad lighting. People find color coding helpful. Look at traffic lights and traffic signs for example.
The reason I find it unnatural is in speech and writing, people literally always say “yes or no?”. I have never ever heard somebody say something like “Do you want one? No or yes?”. It sounds plain weird.
Exactly … people read from left-to-right!
The reason why many don’t find the button order intutitive is because most languages read from Left-to-Right. When you put the primarily action button (e.g. OK etc) on the right … one’s subcoscience notices this is not abnormal.
And i can drive just fine.
So if other people realise this, why does the Gnome HIG have it this way around? I either click the wrong one because I expect the yes/no order, then I don’t understand why the application is not doing what I expect it to.
With color coding, this stops me making the mistake because I don’t normally read the buttons but pick up the colors whilst looking for what to click on.
I don’t really get the “people who are right handed will be able to click it easier” argument, because when I see no/yes, I get confused by the unnatural order and lose whatever tiny gain I would have from my cursor placement.
See, you’re falling for the whole “Yes/No” and “No/Yes” thing, which is not a problem at all… HIG-compliant GNOME dialogues do *not* have “Yes” or “No” as button labels, they use verbs or actions. The order is structurally consistent based on the concept of “affirmative” and “negative”, which makes it easier to understand and adjust to.
“See, you’re falling for the whole “Yes/No” and “No/Yes” thing, which is not a problem at all… HIG-compliant GNOME dialogues do *not* have “Yes” or “No” as button labels, they use verbs or actions. The order is structurally consistent based on the concept of “affirmative” and “negative”, which makes it easier to understand and adjust to.”
But look, you just wrote “affirmative” and “negative” in that order. That’s how people write/say options, they naturally put the positive one first followed by the negative.
Would you like to not save or save?
Would you like to not quit or quit?
Would you like to print or not print?
Would you like to download or not download?
Come on now, do you really find the first pair more natural than the second pair? I realise dialogs aren’t sentences, but that’s how I read them and I find the Gnome style unnatural and abnormal looking.
Basis: KWord out of cvs somewhere around 3.2.0 release of kde, newer kedit, and gimp 2.0-pre3, & looking at the screenshots.
I believe KDE has done things the correct way IMO, and has the implementation of save/discard/cancel in the libraries.
One of the advantages is that it’s consistant throughout the interface. I don’t believe GNOME does. And this: KDE’s (specifically tested on kedit & kword) save if modified dialog is much more intuitive than the GIMP’s because of the options provided (save/discard/cancel vs cancel/close) GNOME’s suggested Alternative/Cancel/Afirmative is nice, but seems to me to be less intuitive, but I mostly use KDE, so the learned intuitiveness applies, and there is a greater possibility for hitting the negative when moving between alternatives & affirmative. (Also, a thought that perhaps KDE should change the save/discard/cancel to save/cancel/discard, but while this might be nice for this one point, it’s not KDE standard, so it should probably stay the same way.)
KDE & Apple implement & the GNOME guidelines specify verbs. This is fine, but lets face it, it may be more intuitive initially, but OK/Cancel has been pounded into the majority of people’s heads, so they have gotten used to it, and it has become something that isn’t as bad as it was. However, it makes it nicer, so there is no reason to not do it, and will actually make Apple, KDE & GNOME better.
This seems like a rather pointless debate, because the GNOME devs decided on it, and it won’t change for a while, just like KDE’s slection of Keramik for the style & window decoration.
The reason I find it unnatural is in speech and writing, people literally always say “yes or no?”. I have never ever heard somebody say something like “Do you want one? No or yes?”. It sounds plain weird.
Nail, meet head. The original article presents it’s points pretty badly, but the “Why the Gnome button order is erroneous” paragraph makes perfect sense.
Plus he seems to forget most people are right handed and when using their mouses it’d seem more natural to go to the button on the right.
This argument is fundamentally flawed – when holding a mouse in your right hand, it is far easier to pull inwards, to the left, than push outwards. Note that i’m only saying that the above argument is erronus, and i am not arguing that the opposite is true with this point.
The top left to bottom right thing that people do when looking at things (like an ad or what have you) is well know amongst any designer who has ever taken a basic design class. Advertisers use this information on a daily basis, why should Computer interface designers ignore this information? The only reason I can think of is “Because Windows ignores this info”
You can’t complain about Microsoft’s terrible record on UI design, and then say that everything should work like them because it is the “de facto standard”.
Is OSS about the status quo or pushing the edge (this includes usability and design)?
> 1. Colours mean different things in different cultures.
> While Red typically equates to ‘No’ for us, I don’t have
> enough data to be sure it doesn’t mean ‘Yes’ in Indonesia.
I think traffic lights are universally Green for Go & Red for Stop (is that where the red/green convention comes from?), but I may be wrong.
Strange that they chose the 2 colours that the vast majority of colourblind people see as the same colour!
I must say the idea of always using verbs on buttons instead of the generic OK/Cancel seems a great idea to me. Perhaps KDE shouold adopt that standard too. (I’m mostly a KDE user, but GNOME do some things better).
Dialog boxes present a question with options. They are not advertisments or library shelves, it’s much more similar to reading or filling out a form. If you have options, you will typically want to read them and having the order as no/yes is just plain unnatural.
Obviously, most people are used to this because of Microsoft, but written and spoken language uses this convention also. You’re saying we shouldn’t follow Microsoft or some “de facto standard”, but I can’t believe you actually think that swapping the order makes the software significantly easier to use.
no/yes order goes against what everbody is used to and all swapping them does is make them click the wrong one if they were a microsoft user or make them read it very careful twice because it looks abnormal.
This site would sink so low as to link to a Geocities website!
“I think traffic lights are universally Green for Go & Red for Stop (is that where the red/green convention comes from?), but I may be wrong.
Strange that they chose the 2 colours that the vast majority of colourblind people see as the same colour!”
Ahhhh, this is a great point, so how do colorblind people navigate. They know by convention that stop is on top and go is on the bottom.
red/top => stop
green/go => go
SO even though I just backed up the GNOME HIG point, I still prefer the KDE way.
“Strange that they chose the 2 colours that the vast majority of colourblind people see as the same colour!”
Yup, sometimes I whiz right through them. Scares the hell out of my passengers. I look over to see this pasty look on their face and realize what I have done. 🙂
But look, you just wrote “affirmative” and “negative” in that order. That’s how people write/say options, they naturally put the positive one first followed by the negative.
You really need to read the actual guidelines. The way “people write/say options” is irrelevant. That’s a spoken or written interaction, not a physical interaction. The consistent placement of the “action” button is based on human metrics (LTR readers, with great consistency, leave their cursor to the right of the text they are reading) and physical/reflex familiarity (you develop a muscle sense for the button that results in affirmative action).
It is not about answering a question. It’s about choosing between “do it”, “don’t do it” and “do something else”. The relationship of those actions is more important in physical terms than literary terms.
The problem I see with the GNOME HIG is thsat it assumes that all people prefer the same thing and think the same way. There may be tendencies, but there is no black or white here, just lots of grey. An earlier poster even made reference to the right and wrong way to do things.
I disagree with the concept of saying that everyone has to do it my way cause it is the right way. At the end of the day, all that matters is we get to the goal, and the difference is that the HIG focuses more on how you get there than on whether you get there, under the (false) assumption that a better way to get people there gets more people there.
I would even go so far as to say that if you did a personality test of the various user groups, the control freaks among us would prefer GNOME whle the more goal oriented folks would prefer KDE.
AT the end of the day, there is room for both camps, which is why there exists the alternatives. Lets stop arguing about whether GNOME should do it KDE’s way or KDE should do it GNOME’s way, it is obviously a waste of energy. Let’s just say they are both right for about half the population each.
CyberCFO, that reminds me a lot of an arguement I had with someone a while back about taste. The arguement was whether taste had a good and bad, or whether it was completely opinion based. Ideally, and logically, you would think that it’s completely opinion based. When you first get into things like that, this arguement makes complete sense. But what you don’t immediately see, and don’t take into consideration, is that logic is based on experience as well as knowledge. Once you are more experienced in matters, you start to notice that there is such a thing as good taste and bad taste, despite your personal opinions. Things like interface preferences aren’t split right down the middle of the user population, nor do people know what’s best for them. The first part of that statement usually sounds pretty acceptable when you really start thinking about it. But the latter part, about people not knowing what’s best for them, probably sounds way off. If so, start looking around. It’s very obvious when you look for it. There are many UI designers who make horrible decisions for incredibly stupid reasons. Take for example the excuse of ‘because most people are used to it that way’. Now at first that makes sense. If you were making a promotional interactive CD that someone will use a few times and throw away, you would make the UI something that people will be familiar with. You would make it match the OS as close as possible, no matter how wrong the OS UI may be. But this same rule doesn’t apply to the OS for 2 reasons; 1)the OS of the user sets the familiarity rules, not the previouse OS of the user because 2)it only takes about a month to get used to using a new UI. Your productivity slows for about a month, and then increases to more than what it was before. There are good UIs and bad UIs, despite taste, because taste is based on what you are used to, not what’s simpler and more efficient, essentially better. The only acceptable reason to sacrifice those goals (of effiency, simplicity, and productivity) in a UI is for the sake of an overall better experience. Sort of a wow, or fun, factor. You must make those sacrifices carefully though, especially in an OS UI, because the wow factors seem to wear off pretty fast. Choose your eye candy carefully, or you will end up with a graphically bloated interface.
> I understand that argument, and have heard it before.
> However, other major Free Software desktop components are
> quickly adopting GNOME’s guidelines. They’re that good. So,
> someone always has to take a bullet to drive things forward,
> and in retrospect, I’m glad we did.
Which ones ? Only those that got into the hands of GNOME developers. Everyone else including users switched to KDE or left Linux as a Desktop solution.
what is all this fuss about. I never had any probs about button ordering. To be very precise, I was not aware of all this stuff(pretty ignorant) but it hardly matters if it is comforatable to users
PantherPPC said:
> People need to realize that there is a right and a wrong way to do things, no matter what someone is used to. Some of these situations, like the one in the article, seem a bit trivial, but they all add up to a good or bad experience.
I don’t know about that.
> The real answer comes in making it all customizable, then letting you carry your preferences with you from computer to computer.
But if there is a right and wrong way, how is the answer letting the user choose their own preference?
Jeff Waugh said:
> Like most detractors, the author misses a crucial part of the guidelines: The most important part of the guidelines is that our dialogue buttons are based on verbs. Actions. Explicit commands. It’s not about “Yes/No” or “OK/Cancel”. Once you make the leap to action-based dialogue buttons, it starts to become clear why a consistent approach to button location matters.
So far, so good.
> And that’s why the guidelines suggest “affirmative on the right, negative beside, other actions to the left”.
And it is this suggestion that has people disagreeing.
I think what most people feel is that is should say “affirmative on the left, negative beside, other actions to the right.” Everything you said still holds, and people would be happy.
> The relationship of those actions is more important in physical terms than literary terms.
And finally we have reached the problem that most people have with the guidelines. The way I figure it, moving the mouse an inch to the left or right is irrelivent when I hit the wrong button since they are not in a logical order. Logical order is positive, negative, other. It makes sense. When I see 3 buttons, this is the order I assume. This is the order most assume. This is the order you assume as shown by your comments.
Basing the guidelines on physical terms implies that the actions of the buttons are irrelivent. It implys that the only thing important is physical motion. This may be true for robots, but I think people want a little more. They don’t want to do things based on reaction and rather do something based on understanding.
Also, basing everything on physical space seems even more flawed considering that movement to the left most button is so little compared to moving to the right most button.
Decisions like this show why Linux may not be for the mainstream. Uh oh.. I shouldn’t have said that.
Since when does anyone in the Linux development world have a clue about usability? Give me a break. Out of all the UI’s I have used, Mac OS ‘feels’ the most natural – but it still has serious issues too (some wonderful articles on this at Ars Technica). The author of this article should try reading the Apple HIG before comparing the GNOME button placement.
Also, hey, I don’t post to many forums, so I haven’t had a chance to get this out of my system. Why is it that (from what I have installed/seen) most window managers today simply ‘copy’ the usability of Windows! When are we going to see some true innovation in this area? Stop bickering about stupid sh*t like what is outlined in this article and start over! Start from scratch and re-think the desktop.
Surely the Linux community has some funds to throw at this problem? Hell, start a fund to hire some professionals in this field to really innovate, because its apparently impossible to find anyone capable.
The biggest annoyance for me is that “Folder” is used instead of “Directory”. But in Unix there are no folders. For example look at mkdir (not mkfol), find -type d (not -type f), ls -l (drwx——, not frwx——). Or read manpages … directories, not folders.
I don’t know why KDE or GNOME want this inconsistency in the unix world. Oh, I have forgotten. KDE and GNOME are Windows-like desktops for Windows users.
I really don’t see why it matters. As long as the chosen method is used consistantly throughout the desktop, I think this is a pretty moot thing to debate. It’s certainly nothing to write such a strongly worded (read “angry”) rant about.
As far as folder vs. directory is concerned, the reason for that is pretty clear. Its easier to make an icon of a folder then a directory (a little phone book or something… that would be confusing).
Really I just click on whatever the default is and assume its yes. Probably other people look more at placement then whats highlighted, just depends how you think. My way occasionally gets me in trouble (the Konqueror spell checker has Cancel highlighted for instance… I’ve filed a bug report.)
I think it does matter, since as he points out, I’m not the only one working in environments mixed with GTK (not really any gnome apps) and KDE applications. Its funny, I just opened up Gaim and they kind of mix up the two ways of doing it within the same app. With Accounts its Add/Modify/Delete/Close but with Add Buddy its Cancel/Add. Considering that Gaim is one of the few GTK programs I use, its not a good sign.
His best argument againist the current Gnome order is that GTK is multiplatform. And no one is kidding anyone, the ‘other’ platform is Windows.
One valid argument for GTK current order not addressed by this ‘rant’ or whatever is the fact that it is the way GTK currently does it, so GTK users are used to it.
Logical order is positive, negative, other. It makes sense. When I see 3 buttons, this is the order I assume.
Two things: A) Neither KDE or Windows use the scheme you’ve proposed above. 🙂 B) You have ignored the human metrics points about LTR readers and common cursor positioning behaviour.
“But if there is a right and wrong way, how is the answer letting the user choose their own preference? ”
Read what I said a few posts later about how the user population is split.
The rest of what you said makes sense, after you think about things. There lies the problem. Affirmative, Negative, Other, as an order, sounds correct after you think about it logically. The UI isn’t something user should be thinking about, it’s something the designer should be thinking about. And the designer needs to realise this. They should make an interface that the user doesn’t think about, that way the OS stays out of the way (a big problem Windows has). First off, the order should never be a set way of Affirmative, Negative, and Other. That means that Yes (or Okay, or Save, or whatever) is always in the same place, and so is No (insert adjective here), and Other(s). This really should not be the case. The most commonly used choice should be the one that is set in the same place all the time. Sometimes pressing Cancel is more common than pressing the affirmative button.
Now for the order. The reasoning behind the order of most common on the left, opposite next, and then the others on the right seems to be based on the idea of how people read. So far so good. The step that is taken too far here is assuming the buttons are read from left to right. You read words and sentences from left to right. You don’t read buttons that way. Now I know what you are thinking…”of course I do, I read everything that way.” But you don’t. With a dialog box, you read the button that’s different first. The most noticeable button. A sentence must flow, but three seperate buttons don’t need to flow. Open a new document in something. Now close it before you save it. A dialog comes up with three choices. Save, Cancel, and Don’t Save. Save is the most common choice, and the different button. It may be highlighted, have a different shape, or pulseate. Next to it is Cancel, the second most common choice. This button assumes you didn’t mean to close the document…part of the reason for this dialog box being there in the first place, because you closed without saving, something the computer sees as strange…so it gave you a dialog asking for more information. Don’t Save is usually places away from the other two buttons, because it is the button that is not suggested. It’s the least common choice, why open and edit something without saving? Of course there are reasons for doing this, which is why there is a button for it, but more often than not you will want to save. Now recall reading from left to right. Read the dialog, “Close without saving?” (Also notice here that the buttons are not yes/no, but actions of Save/Don’t Save) After you read it, from left to right, where are your eyes? They are on the right. Your most common button, in this case Save, should follow the flow of this dialog. It should be close to the end of what you just read, “Close without saving?” This most common button should follow the flow of left to right so as it’s the first button you notice (also the reason it is highlighted, or looks different). If the button is places all the way to the left, you are starting a new flow of left to right, instead of continuing the current flow of left to right.
Remember, a group of buttons is not read as it’s own flow of information like a sentence. Each button is read seperately, and the most commonly used button needs to be the first seen, so it is highlighted and should follow the flow of what you just read. This means it should be to the right.
So I come back to my other statement…there is a right way and a wrong way. The inexperienced choice would be to put the common button on the left, and the others following suit, because you read from left to right. But when you think out the problem as a designer, and really understand what will be happening in the users mind, you will see that there is a logical way to do things. A right way and a wrong way, and it’s the designers job to give the user a better experience, even if you have to drag them kicking and screaming into a better way of doing things because they don’t want to change the way they have been doing things for so long.
I stand by what I said. I’d also like to say that I’ve used both Windows and Mac and the switch from Windows to Mac style confirm boxes, was super easy, because the Mac way really is more intuitive. It’s just visually much easier to find the “action” button, and distinguish them from the others.
I can’t say that switching from a Mac way to a PC way was easy (I learned some stuff on a Mac and some on a PC in my ealry computing days before switching to a PC almost full time, now at work I interact with the designers’ Mac’s all the time.)
Also, I looked around in Windows a little, and aside from being a bit inconsistent, it seems they are doing things more “Mac like” than “KDE like” these days – with the save/cancel or open/cancel buttons on the left – though the open url in WMP and IE are in reverse order, and the confirm boxes are also in reverse order – hence my accusation of inconsistency.
Oh and human language patterns change and evolve all the time.
Just to add to that, designers know that people view objects in a picture (like an ad with a picture and some words and a logo, or a computer interface or a confirmation box) in an order that is different from the way they read (left to right) and that that order can be “hinted” with visual cues, such as pointing objects and visual barriers – that one is used all the time, look at a random ad in a magazine, and you see that most of them have some sort of an object (object in design language is not literal – negative space or a strong shadow can be and object) blocking the bottom right of the page. These tricks are used to keep the attention of a viewer on the page, and to change the viewers eye motion from top left to bottom right, to some other path.
This whole topic raises an interesting issue – the oss community has plenty of very motivated programmers that are willing to work for free – but not too many real professional designers. I am a programmer in a design studio (went to school to be a designer, but liked programming better), and believe me, designers and programmers see things very differently.
This seems like one of those issues best left to the designers.
Isn’t it fun to see how these zealots celebrate the GNOME way of doing things ? They repeat the stuff that others has told them over and over again. And guess what, none of these usability tests has been done by serious people. People with value, people who took the user experience into account, people who know what they are doing. Most of the stuff has been forced in. This is more a religion rather than clear minded decisions.
They say MacOSX does it right, but also Windows does it right as well. They have as many paid scientists who spent hours and months into user research and what they prefer and how they like it. So you can’t clearly say that MacOSX is doing it right since Windows can do it as right. And who is up here to decide which one of them is righter ?
What about people who read from right to left ? What about left hand people ? What about people who read from top to bottom or from bottom to top ? You can’t simply come and justify the decision of changing all these things.
GNOME has alienated a lot of people because of all this.
Why is Gnome having so much bad press in the public ?
It makes much more sense to me, I’m used to it and it feels natural.
I also think Firebird should stick to the KDE way and not follow the GNOME HIG unless they have a version for the KDE HIG too.
“They say MacOSX does it right, but also Windows does it right as well. They have as many paid scientists who spent hours and months into user research and what they prefer and how they like it. So you can’t clearly say that MacOSX is doing it right since Windows can do it as right. And who is up here to decide which one of them is righter ?
What about people who read from right to left ? What about left hand people ? What about people who read from top to bottom or from bottom to top ? You can’t simply come and justify the decision of changing all these things.
GNOME has alienated a lot of people because of all this.”
Actually I have spent a lot of time researching and testing this. I am a multimedia developer and spend a lot of time designing user interfaces.
I can also tell you that Microsoft has done very little research on the subject, and is very slow to change what they know is wrong because they don’t want to break consistancy with older interfaces, but if you notice, Windows is becoming more and more Mac-like as it evolves.
Yes, some people read differently, and some are left handed. That’s why almost all of us agree that things should be customizable. But most users read from right to left, and 9 out of 10 people are right handed. For an interface to be widely accepted it has to adhere to a large number of people, and setting the defualts for the minority doesn’t make much sense.
There are a lot of people and companies that have done a lot of testing and research on this stuff. Go read what they have come up with, they aren’t talking out of their asses. I have yet to see a zealot in this thread, so stop looking down on people. We are all adding opinions, and that’s what forums are for. Some of us know more about the subject than others, and some are just saying what they are comfortable with. You can’t exclude people for being inexperienced. That’s like excluding people who read from right to left or are left handed.
I ask of the Gnome developers and of all the other’s who are disparaging the original author of the article being discussed to provide links to a body of research that confirms your choices. Let there be an open dialog on the strengths of this research and let’s take it from there.
Jeff, you really need to work on trying to come across a bit less like this is a done deal and we are right and we do not need to listen to anyone else.
For what is worth, I have been using Linux for more years than I care to remember. When Gnome switched to the new button layout, tons of people complained and there hasn’t been one user in my LUG in all this time that thinks that the gnome button order makes better sense. What’s sad is that many people have actually stopped using Gnome because of this.
I would also wager that most Gnome developers are not as hard-headed about this as the small intelligentsia of self-appointed HI gurus. How many of you have actually done peer-reviewed academic research into this matter?
Pettiness has killed many a great project. Don’t let it happen to Gnome.
This is my main argument and probably the reason why there are 2 camps regarding this issue. I AM coming from windows and would say I am a “power user”(meaning I can click my way around pretty fast) So between windows and gnome – start menu, min/maxing windows, selecting file/edit/view/etc are pretty much identical. But when it comes to save file/question dialog and the fact I am used to windows, it feels very unnatural to have save/cancel reversed.
OK so if you’re not coming from windows or you never used a gui before gnome, its a non issue to you (I understand that). My question then is why is it a issue for you guys that the save button is closer to the right side. How many microseconds are you saving. Yes after a few years of using gnome I now know to read the dialog fully before I select. How many complaints are you getting from people unhappy with the current HIG regarding the dialog boxes? Im sure gnome developers only use gnome(not all but most), but i would venture to say that just because you are a developer doesn’t necessarily mean you are a power user. Personally I would love to be using linux/gnome full time for my personal desktop, but we are not quite there yet. I still need my XP.
My final question is… How many complaints would there be if you gnome guys put the dialog order similar to windows? I’ll go out on a limb and say close to zero. Although changing it now would bring complaints.
In conclusion I would like add that linux is just getting crumbs in terms of the desktop market share, so maybe changing now before we try to get a bigger slice of the windows pie would be a good idea.
I’ve worked on quit a large number of systems so order something that I do not worry about all. What is just about 1000 times more important is using the verbs that the button stands for. Some times the best thing for accurate use is scambling things up some. Its time to make people stop and read some before clicking and going.
Yes/no/cancel of the standard windows dialog boxes has cost me and the firms that I worked for untold of sums of money over the last fifteen years or so.
“Do you believe your nonsense ? I am just having breakfast and my coffee swells out of my nose because I was laughing.”
Laugh all you want, but unless you offer a counterarguement, you might as well stop talking about it. If you can prove me wrong, or offer a better solution, fine. But you aren’t even backing up your opinions. That makes your statements worthless, so either back it up or don’t say it.
“How many of you have actually done peer-reviewed academic research into this matter?”
I have.
“Laugh all you want, but unless you offer a counterarguement, you might as well stop talking about it. If you can prove me wrong, or offer a better solution, fine. But you aren’t even backing up your opinions. That makes your statements worthless, so either back it up or don’t say it.”
I don’t want to backup anything. I got used to the Windows model which is also used on Amiga, CDE, Motif, KDE and various other systems. It’s a matter of preferences and personal choice. So why changing it ? Just because 2 people had their head tied up their butt and claim to know it better ?
Here is a reference of an article written by someone who contributed for the past years to GNOME. As you can see there are even 2 camps inside GNOME now.
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=100742&cid=8590500
How comes I don’t read so much bad press around KDE ?
As a GNOME user, this is really one of those nicities that I miss when forced to use other systems (read: Windows).
I’d be upset if they changed this, because it really seems more natural to me, and it’s one of those things that makes operating my computer a tiny bit easier.
Richster, it’s not about the microseconds you save, it’s about the ease of use. If it’s easier, even in the smallest amount, it makes the experience that much better. It is small, and seems trivial, but there are people who design this stuff for a living, and it’s there job to look into every little detail and get it right.
“In conclusion I would like add that linux is just getting crumbs in terms of the desktop market share, so maybe changing now before we try to get a bigger slice of the windows pie would be a good idea.”
Doing like Windows and getting marketshare isn’t fixing the problem, it’s just replacing it with a newer look. Linux is getting better and better because it’s not just after marketshare, and in turn money. The people making a difference in Linux are passionate about what they are doing.
It’s not about taking marketshare from Windows, it’s about replaceing the Windows monopoly with something better.
“I don’t want to backup anything.”
Not the best way to debate.
“I got used to the Windows model which is also used on Amiga, CDE, Motif, KDE and various other systems.”
That doesn’t make it better. When one UI copies another UI that did it wrong, you get two wrong UIs. Two wrongs doesn’t make a right.
“It’s a matter of preferences and personal choice.”
Went over that already, and you have yet to counter it.
“So why changing it ? Just because 2 people had their head tied up their butt and claim to know it better ?”
Well if one of those two people happen to be me, you should know I do this for a living and have done a lot of research and testing, which you don’t seem to have done seeing as your arguement is based on what you are used to. If you’ll notice, there are a lot of other people and companies who have done research and testing on this. I only claim I know what I am talking about, but I am open to suggestions if they have some thought behind them, not just opinions based to bad habits.
The information in that article you linked to talking about how things should be customizable, and didn’t say anything substantial about defaults. No one has argued that. That’s not what this discussion is about.
What about people who read from right to left ? What about left hand people ? What about people who read from top to bottom or from bottom to top ? You can’t simply come and justify the decision of changing all these things.
Well, if it interests you, I did do some testing along these lines, because I was sceptical too.
People who read RTL languages are supported automagically because GTK+ handles interface flipping. I haven’t actually tested this due to lack of available subjects, but I’ll leave it with the GTK+ point.
Left handers still read RTL or LTR depending on their language, and thus, their eye travel and resting hand behaviour was largely the same when tested.
People who read from bottom to top are simply not supported at all by Windows, KDE or GNOME, so there’s no point dealing with this one. Untested.
Jeff, you really need to work on trying to come across a bit less like this is a done deal and we are right and we do not need to listen to anyone else.
Well, this basically is a done deal. I’m not sure how you can expect a huge amount of flexibility on this point. Our software has been designed to work this way. It’s not a matter of flicking a switch, and it’s not like we’re going to change it on the whims of anonymous osnews posters. If, if you can provide good testing or usability data that strongly disagrees with the HIG position on this, then by all means, join the usability list and share. But right now, all our data and experience so far suggests we’ve made the right decision.
Here is a reference of an article written by someone who contributed for the past years to GNOME. As you can see there are even 2 camps inside GNOME now.
This was posted by a well-known troll, and is not even remotely relevant to or representative of GNOME developers generally.
How comes I don’t read so much bad press around KDE ?
Random whining posted to tech websites is not “press”. 🙂
BTW,
“They repeat the stuff that others has told them over and over again.”
How is that different from what you are doing?
> Well if one of those two people happen to be me, you should
> know I do this for a living and have done a lot of research
> and testing
Great, then let me forward this to you “Who are you deciding what’s good for me and what not ?” and “Who gave you the rights to be selfish in your decision ?” and “Who says you are right ?”
“Who are you deciding what’s good for me and what not ?”
Unless I am forcing you to use something, then I am not deciding anything for you. I am offering the knowledge of my experience on the subjust. I am contributing to the thread, which is more that you are doing.
“”Who gave you the rights to be selfish in your decision ?”
Being selfish would mean I am not open to others suggestions. But as I have stated before, I am open, but only to suggestions that have a reasoning behind them. You have yet to offer that.
“Who says you are right ?”
Well, for one, a lot of research, which you haven’t done. Again, as I said before, if I am wrong than tell me why and I will change my mind. Restating an opinion over and over again doesn’t make you right because you still haven’t shown any reason behind that opinion. You don’t even have to research it, just give some reasoning for what you are thinking, and we can discuss it like civilized people.
“This was posted by a well-known troll, and is not even remotely relevant to or representative of GNOME developers generally.”
So, what you say here is. That everyone who doesn’t share your opinion or those of some Mr. Wondersome are to be called Trolls ? Isn’t this highly selfish and ignorant ? I don’t believe this is the way a community has to work. We in KDE don’t call other people Trolls just because they have a different opinion. We try to listen to them and fairly discuss the things they brought up. I have seen a lot of people who brought up problems around GNOME and they have all been called Trolls. Everyone and everybody in the past couple of years who liked to bring up valid points about where GNOME is going wrong are called Trolls.
What have you done for GNOME so far other than talking a lot of crap and attacking people ? You are a selfish, mighthungry, ignorant and namecalling person Jeff.
Should I remind you about this ?
http://www.amc.com.au/lca/loopback/papers/Jeff_Waugh/Jeff_Waugh.spx
(get http://www.speex.org and depack the file then go to 11m 11s)
Where have you get the right to publicly namecall people. Specially someone who spent the past years contributing to GNOME (but has a different opinion than you). Who gave you the right to call them ‘Troll’ in a public audience of people ? You are one of the best examples of a true Troll Jeff.
The other thing found on /. only contains valid critics about GNOME which erveryone can check up themselves. There is no namecalling, no slandering nothing. Just valid points and criticism around GNOME.
> Well, for one, a lot of research
So you read some ‘GUIs for Dummies’ book makes you become an expert here ? Where are your publications, where are the other people with similar skills (named people) who can confimr your theories to be valid and good ?
And no, you are one of those who are NOT open minded and like to listen to other people. If you have done so, you wouldn’t have changed the Buttonorder at all. You haven’t said anything about why the old behaviour (which worked good for nearly 20 years) has to be changed ?
When I build a house I usually start building it from the fundament and not with the roof. It worked that way for the past hundrets of years and yet I don’t see a point to change this.
Personally I prefer KDE’s button scheme. Probably because ive been a windows users for a long time.
“We try to listen to them and fairly discuss the things they brought up.”
Pot calling the kettle black? Where in this thread have you fairly discussed things? You aren’t discussing something if you don’t back up what you say. If all you have is an unsupported opinion, then that’s fine, call it that. But critisizing others who disagree with you is making yourself out to be a troll by your own definition.
“So you read some ‘GUIs for Dummies’ book makes you become an expert here ? Where are your publications, where are the other people with similar skills (named people) who can confimr your theories to be valid and good ?”
I’m not a writer, I’m a multimedia developer, and I’ve already said that my statement was my opinion which is based on my research. Your statement was your opinion based on nothing. Which is fine until you start critisizing other peoples opinions when you can’t back yours up.
“And no, you are one of those who are NOT open minded and like to listen to other people. If you have done so, you wouldn’t have changed the Buttonorder at all.”
Being open-minded means considering another view, not changing yours just because you read another one.
“You haven’t said anything about why the old behaviour (which worked good for nearly 20 years) has to be changed ?”
How can something get better if it doesn’t change? How long did CLI’s work well?
“When I build a house I usually start building it from the fundament and not with the roof. It worked that way for the past hundrets of years and yet I don’t see a point to change this.”
There are others ways that people have been developing for that too. They have started building the walls, the roof, and the foundations all before putting them together. This way they can assemble modularly, room by room, instead of one thing on top of another. This has proven to be cheaper, faster (largely due to inspections not taking as long), and sturdier. But hey, why not live in clay huts? It worked before.
> > “We try to listen to them and fairly discuss the things
> > they brought up.”
> Pot calling the kettle black? Where in this thread have you
> fairly discussed things?
See, I caught you here. You say you listen to people. But the reality is that you caugh them in such discussions. Your way of replying to things is just giving an counter argument on everything raised. One question gives one counter argument. Another argument gives yet another counter argument from your side. This is how the GNOME developers are listening to users. It’s only a maskerade a farce to say it that way. If you would really listen to people then you wouldn’t have been earning so much criticism.
At the end it’s nothing about GNOME it’s more about the developers who gives a shit on the TRUE needs of users. Talking with you is like talking with a wall. All the times people like you come up with technoshit that no one understands. Yet you say you made heavy research but you didn’t came up with one named person who may be known in the public as being a solid source of information and research. You said you made heavy researches but you can’t confirm it. People come up here telling you that they prefer the old ways, they even came up with a valid reason like becoming mad because KDE and other Toolkit apps behave differently with OK and CANCEL than GNOME and yet you caugh them the same way into technobubble rather than going out and say ‘ok I agree we made a freaking mistake here, let’s change it’. You are simply NOT interested to admit that you are wrong. You are not willing to admit it and you are not willing to talk with people. You DO speak with them no doubt but you don’t listen to them. You ignore them by passive replying to the stuff you are not interested in.
“See, I caught you here. You say you listen to people. But the reality is that you caugh them in such discussions. Your way of replying to things is just giving an counter argument on everything raised. One question gives one counter argument. Another argument gives yet another counter argument from your side. This is how the GNOME developers are listening to users. It’s only a maskerade a farce to say it that way. If you would really listen to people then you wouldn’t have been earning so much criticism.”
No, that’s called debating. If I think I am right and you think you are right, we both give our reasons and discuss it. I gave my reasons, but you haven’t given yours.
“At the end it’s nothing about GNOME it’s more about the developers who gives a shit on the TRUE needs of users. Talking with you is like talking with a wall. All the times people like you come up with technoshit that no one understands. Yet you say you made heavy research but you didn’t came up with one named person who may be known in the public as being a solid source of information and research. You said you made heavy researches but you can’t confirm it. People come up here telling you that they prefer the old ways, they even came up with a valid reason like becoming mad because KDE and other Toolkit apps behave differently with OK and CANCEL than GNOME and yet you caugh them the same way into technobubble rather than going out and say ‘ok I agree we made a freaking mistake here, let’s change it’. You are simply NOT interested to admit that you are wrong. You are not willing to admit it and you are not willing to talk with people. You DO speak with them no doubt but you don’t listen to them. You ignore them by passive replying to the stuff you are not interested in.”
Listening to users is great for input, but most users don’t know what they are talking about or what they need. They just spout out what they are used to, a lot like what you are doing here. Most people really don’t like change. Designing something to act just like an existing product doesn’t give anyone reason enough to use your product. You must improve upon whats there, which means changing it. I take in everything I read, see, hear, and experience. If a view differs from mine I consider it, but if there is no reasoning behind that view, there is no reason for me to alter my view. I’m not going to change my view without a good reason, and I’m not out to make anyone use anything they don’t want to. I’m here stateing my opinion and how I came to that conclusion. You have given me no reason to change my views.
Just give a reason for saying what you are saying. Other people saying the same thing doesn’t make it right because anyone can get other people to back them up. If you give me a solid reason to make me change my mind I will gladly change it, but calling me wrong and not saying why is not a solid reason.
Nice one. I’ll give up on you like others have given up on ‘debatting’ *cough cough cough* with certain members of the GNOME developers. You know what’s good for me, that’s enough. I like you deciding my needs and what you think I should find good. You are not offering choices, you are enforcing them. But that’s the price you pay for people leaving for KDE. Next time you fix something. Start fixing the heavily bugprone framework rather than making such decisions about button behaviour changes.
“Nice one. I’ll give up on you like others have given up on ‘debatting’ *cough cough cough* with certain members of the GNOME developers. You know what’s good for me, that’s enough. I like you deciding my needs and what you think I should find good. You are not offering choices, you are enforcing them. But that’s the price you pay for people leaving for KDE. Next time you fix something. Start fixing the heavily bugprone framework rather than making such decisions about button behaviour changes.”
Don’t know where you got the idea that I was a Gnome developer. I’m not.
Nor am I enforcing anything for forcing you to do anything. I’ve said quite a few times that I support offering options for this stuff. But the opinion of a user who has not experience in the matter is not enough to make me throw out all my research. Get over yourself.
> Don’t know where you got the idea that I was a Gnome
> developer. I’m not.
You obviously are, otherwise you wouldn’t spent so much time in enforcing your views on me. You speak the same way like those who I have to deal with the past years.
“Pot calling the kettle black?”
Is also something I heard from a ‘special’ GNOME developer for quite some time now.
I am not a Gnome developer. I am a multimedia developer. I can’t do that on Linux. Pot calling the kettle black is a very old saying. Look around on this site and many others, I use OS X. I’m not enforcing my views on you, I don’t even know you. If you don’t like my views, then fine, but don’t call me wrong and not say why. Obviously I care about listening to others reasoning or I wouldn’t keep asking you for yours. But once again, I am not a Gnome developer. I support Linux and a lot of what it’s doing. I support variety in software. I support a competing market, it drive people to innovate and make things better. But I am not a Gnome developer.
I don’t give a damn about button positioning and have no idea why other people care, but if forced to pick, I’d say the Windows/KDE style makes more sense, and not just because I’ve spent seven years on Windows/KDE.
Coz i think it sucks bigtime and i have major Kernel-Gods on my side 😉
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2001-November/msg00019.htm…
Bring it on!
Please help ..
First of all, i’m sorry if i’m going to repeat some points as i didn’t have the time to read all of these posts, yet.
I think that the Gnome button ordering is better, not by conviction to either platform (i don’t use them, and mostly run console-programs). My reasoning is that of having done little GUI design and a lot’s of graphical design for ad’s etc. The fact is that most of us reads from left to right, and thus our eyes tend to read images from left to right. I don’t have the reference material for this available, but there is a documentary about using mechanism that follows eye movement of the viewer while the viewers are shown different pictures. So we read images from up-left to down-right, then go for the details. And the up-left and down-right points are placed according to the golden-mean on the image. Most of the software adheres to this way, and when thinking about this it is very logical to have dialog buttons on the down-right side of the dialog as the eyes tend to look at that place just after looking up-left position (and that placing them down-left would clutter the interface graphically). If the buttons are always aligned to right then the button that has the priority over all the other should be at rightmost position because it is most easily found on the dialog.
For deciding that if No or Yes should be prioritized on dialogs is hard to debate, as dialogs can have many different functions. I feel that “doing” the action on the dialog should be prioritized, but i don’t have any special reasonings for it.
About not being consistant, i think that is kind of a moot point because maybe it is better that user has to think about the options little more than just clicking where they are used to click. Because i think that when user spends more cycles to think about the button ordering, then he might spend more time reading the text on the dialog. Yes, i have seen many users just clickedy clik on the same place excepting that they will answer “Yes” or “Agree” on all the questions, what if the question would suddenly be “Would you like to wipe all the data from your harddrives?” – Yes. DOH!
Well, agreements should be on the right side because when i do the “thumbs-up” on my right hand the thumb is pointing more to the right. </joke>
PS. I agree on Jason Lotito’s “A rand and nothing more…” post.
+V
<sarcasm>
Gnome is truly superior to any other desktop out there especially KDE. Who cares about the Windows users anyway? If some Windows user can not adapt to use Gnome’s far superior HIG-based GUI then they are truly backward and should go back to where they came from.
</sarcasm>
Truly who is these Gnome developers who believe that their way is the absolute right way? They want to push Gnome as a corporate desktop solution don’t they? Perhaps OSS is not about pushing the edge and more about getting people from different (OS) backgrounds to use the software.
Anyway I’ll just take the Gnome source code for 2.6 release and change the button ordering to the crappy Windows(KDE?) way and publish some screenshots with some dialog boxes on my website (non-existent yet). I’ll then proceed to submit my patches to the gnome developers, which can be happily ignored by them, but at least I’ll be GPL-compliant.
Considering that he is long-term Gnome users and one of its most significant developers, it says a lot:
“To make the GTK+ standard dialogs button ordering conform to the gnome usability project’s dialog proposal.
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/proposals/dialog.html
This is Mac style with the “action” button at the lower right hand corner, as opposed to what we’ve done in the past – Windows style with the default button at the left.
So,
[ Help ] [ Cancel ] [ OK ]
Not:
[ Help ] [ OK ] [ Cancel ]
While I’m willing to be told that this is the better ordering (the fact that Windows and Mac disagree probably mean that there is no “right” ordering), I have two reservations about the change:
* Familiarity is important; I’m feeling quite disoriented by the change and other of our users will probably be disoriented too, both existing GNOME users and users coming from Windows.
* With this change we’ll have inconsistency in all apps until they are fixed.”
I’m totally happy to stand behind my comments in that talk, and I have no doubt that a large proportion of the developer community would agree with my assessment of that person. On the whole (because he has actually done some productive work here and there), he has not been a positive contributor to the project… Indeed, he has been a consistent source of flames and angst, in public and in private. A natural part of being involved in a community such as GNOME is public accountability – if you’re a goon in public, that’s what you’ll be described as. Simple as that. Same rules apply to me. 🙂
Note that Owen’s comments came about back when we were still talking in terms of “OK/Cancel”, and not everyone had understood the importance of actions/verbs as button labels. The ordering thing *does* seem like a big pointless deal until that side of it becomes clear.
Jeff, there are a lot of logs floating around that proves you to be a really evil peron with dictator behaviours and really bad manners. You certainly are a bad example of person to make such judgements about others. The logs that I got from that person shows that you are the root of many troubles. You are playing a sad doublefaced game in the public and this can not be tolerated. You are known (and others know) what kind of slandering person you are. You badmouth everyone and everything you cant stand and which doesn’t fit into your picture. You are a shame for this project and one day you will have to stand for all the trouble you cause.
Your anonymous cowardliness is so strong and trustworthy against my weak and pathetic public face and accountable actions! How noble you are, how righteous! 🙂
> Your anonymous cowardliness is so strong and trustworthy
> against my weak and pathetic public face and accountable
> actions! How noble you are, how righteous! 🙂
How do you like this then ? You are such a great and brave person. You west is shining in bright white because you are such a nice and friendly guy.
Read this Tarball which contains a FEW chatlogs and emails I received about what people think about you. How they think about you. How you think about others. How you badmouth about GNOME Foundation Boardmembers (Leslie, full chatlog exists too). How you slander about the KDE project and much much more. Oh don’t worry I do own much more than this. I know making these things public won’t throw a creditable picture on my person. But the way you permanently attacked me and others in the past couple of years makes this necessary and justifies this.
http://www.akcaagac.com/jeff.tar.bz2
I believe the real problem is that KDE and Gnome do it differently. People can adopt to any UI after spending some time with it, that is not the problem. But the UI has to be consistent for all applications. A lot of people keep saying that it is good that there are multiple desktops on Linux (“choice is good”), but imho it is really one of the worst problems that Linux has. Until KDE and Gnome merge or one of them is virtually dead, i think that Linux has little chance of making it on the desktop.
I find it very irritating how some people here are stating that GNOME’s or GTK+’s button order is flawed or incorrect. I’ve used GNOME 2.X for several months now and haven’t had any problems with it’s dialogs button order.
What I find even more irritating is that this turns out into a “KDE/Windows does it better” style flame. I’d just say that KDE, Windows, GNOME and MAC OS X all do things different. What’s wrong with GNOME using an button order that differs from KDE and Windows? Just saying the majority of people is used to Windows’ way does not justify calling GNOME developers arrogant.
Some people here insist that usability studies must be provided to justify GNOME’s button order but then totally fail to provide a study that would give us arguments at hand to judge the button order of KDE or Windows as being the “right one”. Aside from that, differently styled dialogs seem to magically work for most sane people – you just press the button that represensts what you want to happen.
I as well as lots of other computer users use several Dekstops and operating systems and am/are able to cope with different message and file dialogs without flaming their developers or calling them arrogant. In fact, I don’t give a shit about Windows and KDE having other dialogs than GNOME, I can use them without insulting their developers and I don’t feel any need that either of KDE’s or GNOME’s developers provide usability studies to justify their decisions.
Trolling in puplic forums that GNOME is better than KDE or that QT rules and GTK+ sucks won’t lead us anywhere it’ll just waste peoples time without helping those who do the actual work.
What’s funny is that everyone who used my Computer which runs GNOME as a desktop environment hasn’t had any problem dealing with gedit, nautilus, epiphany browser, Zapping, XMMS and some other apps although they all are Windows users. No complaints, just some questions about e.g. file system layout…
i’m mainly a windows user, but apple and gnome button order feels natural, too. the button order is not that important, more important is consistency and dialogs that are non-ambiguous. in windows few programmers care about HIG, many different styles. the problem with X (linux, bsd, etc…) are the differences between Gnome and KDE (and GnuStep, FLTK, TK, ….).
1. let the user configure it. in a kde-wide and gnome-wide setting(s). that way the appearance is per-user. problem solved. the default you can always argue about.
2. yes/no is what people say. graphically the yes should be in the bottom right corner as it is emphased more. the yes in the left is not emphasised, leading to “no” beong the obvious choice.
This argument is fundamentally flawed – when holding a mouse in your right hand, it is far easier to pull inwards, to the left, than push outwards. Note that i’m only saying that the above argument is erronus, and i am not arguing that the opposite is true with this point.
Yes, it is harder to go straight left, rather than straight right. However, it is eaiser to go down-right, rather than down-left. And since the affirmitive is in the lower-right, it would be easier to get to, no?
Try it!
All in all, I’ve never had a problem with button order. Either suites me fine. Why? Cause I can read!
It kind of makes you stop and think doesn’t it?
Is that a bad thing? zazen