“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
100+ comments for a little story about ok & cancel…
whats wrong with the gnome community?!
This must be one of the most interesting and most silly discussions I’ve ever read. Button ordering is important, it clearly follows out of the heated debate.
If I have grasped it correctly, it is a debate about an ergonomic view against a cognitive view. GNOME HIG is looking at it ergonomically and thus it makes sense to put the common action on the right. This placement on the right (and subsequent right to left reading) does however cause a cognitive disonance, because for all pratical purposes in the western world information is processed left to right.
Cognitive affirmative/negative/other makes sense.
Ergonomically other/negative/affirmative makes sense too.
Mixed environments don’t make sense.
As I see it, the problem lies in the horizontal plane. Ergonomically it makes sense to keep important options to the right, cognitively it doesn’t. Right to left goes against our natural language bias towards left to right.
Is this juxtaposition of both valid viewpoints solvable so that it satisfies both? I think it is. When we look at the vertical plane, it is possible to place “buttons” towards the right and still be in line with our second cognitive sense that information should be top to bottom. It would mean another change, placing the buttons from top to bottom on the right side of the dialog.
It would look like this:
[Help]
Would you like to do “ActionX”? [Don’t do “ActionX”]
[Do “ActionX”]
It’s just an idea, don’t kill the messenger
On a side note, I usually have my cursor in the lower right quadrant of the screen, so doing a:
Other
negative
affirmative
makes sense, as my cursor is allready near affirmative.
the tabulation went horribly wrong. Please read it as the buttons all aligned to the right and vertical…
So we should also change the Unix shells to use backslash to change directory, just because Windows does it? Windows does lots of brain-dead things (but some nice things, too). If we just started imitating Windows, where would we be? We make choices that we believe are correct / innovative / etc. As my adopted mom would say, “Just get past it.”
“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!”
Totally agree there. It’s not that the Yes button needs to be in a certain place, it’s that common button does. “Would you like to wipe all the data from your harddrives?” would be a good dialog to make No the common button.
Ronald, partially vertical placement is a great idea. Actions on the bottom, coomon action to the right, and others on top, such as Help, because these buttons don’t carry out or not carry out the dialog.
Anonymous (IP: —.dip.t-dialin.net), you have yet to add anything to this discussion except flames. You offer no alternative ways of doing things, or reasons why the ways of the people you argue with are wrong. Whether Jeff is credible or not is beside the point because he gives a reason for his thinking. If you did the same (btw, notice how your actions are the same as what you accuse him of), then you wouldn’t be seen as a troll. As for the other Gnome developers you speak of…maybe they aren’t claiming they are right because they use Gnome, but they use Gnome because it does it right. They thought about how it should work and made it work that way. Do you honestly think MS thought about how it should work? Lol. And KDE does it like Windows because it’s what Windows users are used to. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
whats wrong with the gnome community?!
I don’t thing it is the gnome community that is generating all that noise. The people in the community already think that “No/Yes” is better than “Yes/No” for the dialogs (altought is not “Yes/No”, but you get the point), or just got used to it. I don’t want to switch back. I don’t need the option. Why can’t KDE offer such thing? Why it is GNOME that has to change?
I just looked at a GNOME dialog, and I realised since I read from left to right, the last place my eyes are at when I see a dialog is rightmost part. And that is usually the default. After a few days using an app, I don’t even read the dialogs because I am acclimatised. I now know what save, discard and don’t save mean.
Some people were going on abotu how some people are color blind, but these people should use the same themes as the rest of us. They should be themes made where the colors they can distinguish are used. The world cannot stop because some people can not tell apart red and green. In fact I would challenge them to actually make a theme they are comfortable with, replacing the colors which confuse. I mean, is the developer s not colorblind, he is highly unlikely to be able to take care of that. A color blind person probably has a much easier time aking such a theme in the first place.
Besides color coding, the pictures on the buttons could be informative themselves. A little “X” in red could signify some hazard warning. If you don’t get the red or the “X”, then its pretty unfortunate.
//Yup, sometimes I whiz right through them. Scares the hell out of my passengers.//
Hopefully, you’ll soon learn to memorize the position of said lights, rather than the colours (top, middle, bottom).
Probably lots less pee’d pants in your vehicle, if you did. 🙂
I guess it’s a good thing if we don’t have bigger issues to argue about than button order.
Personally, I think it is good that GNOME has a HIG, and that GNOME enforces the HIG guidelines. Users should not be able to change the default layout, everything should be consistent. Could you imagine training documentation that showed dialogs with one button order and a user trying to figure out something with non-default button order?
Jeff also mentioned that the HIG guidelines are based upon the best info they have available. So if someone has better info, more usablility info/research, please get involved and help to make the next version even better!
<quote> 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. </quote>
You seem to be arguing for the way gnome does things, but the way you just stated the options is actually the way kde does it. Was that on purpose or was it just the natural way for you to write it? (not intended to be a slur).
The thing i dont understand is about the gnome choice is that the option you normally pick is (presumably) “ok”. If this is on the right of the dialog, it means the user has to read through the other options to get there.
And, while it will be colour coordinated, you still have to make the movement of your eyes from the left point (closer to the natural position they are in) to the right.This would be an unnecessary action if they used kdes choice.
This means giving the user extra work to do (either picking out colours, or reading all the buttons) which seems to be going against the reason these guidelines where created.
> The thing i dont understand is about the gnome choice is that the option you normally pick is (presumably) “ok”. If this is on the right of the dialog, it means the user has to read through the other options to get there.
I think that it is better that the user “has” to read through all the options so that he/she won’t make a choice without knowing the other possibilities. It would not be nice to answer “Let’s start the war.” just because you didn’t know there was “Let’s settle this peacefully.” option =)
At least you have to agree with Jeff that this oGALAXYo fellow is the troll of the millenium.
I wonder why you defend her/him so vehemently. Actually I’m surprised that he hasn’t shown up for this GNOME discussion like he does every other.
Do you happen to have seen him around any lately, Anonymous or is it Jamal.
This is getting off-topic, but it needs to be clarified. The only icons that are problematic for people with red-green color-blindness are the stock YES and NO icons in GTK+, which are green and red circles. Making them distinct shapes would help immensely.
The HIG recommends making icon silhouettes distinct.
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/icons.html#icon_des…
The point here is that it doesn’t just help people with vision problems. Your brain (yes, yours) has an easier time distinguishing the icons based on shape. With distinct shapes, you can distinguish the buttons out of the corner of your eye. People do not have good color perception in their peripheral vision.
Of course, any of us can always just read the text of the button. But the whole point of putting icons there is that the eye can scan them more quickly. For common actions (like, say, Save) you can recognize the icon far faster than you can read the actual text.
As for traffic lights, the green light (at least in the US) is a pale green with a slight blue tint. For most red-greens, it is easily distinguished from the red light. However, the red and yellow are usually a problem. On a normal traffic light it doesn’t matter that much, but it is a problem when you have the stand-alone flashing red and yellow lights. Fortunately, stand-alone flashing red lights are always accompanied by a stop sign.
“I think that it is better that the user “has” to read through all the options so that he/she won’t make a choice without knowing the other possibilities.”
Old way (and better way):
Do you want to save this file ?
[Save] [Cancel]
New way of getting rid of users:
Do you want to write this document to your multimedia device and live a long lasting life with honour and prosper. You know writing this document gives you a heroic life if not you are just a little looser ?
[Frobnicate that File on your Multimedia Device] [Please do not write any documents to the Multimedia Device] [I really do not know because I have no clue] [Write the Multimedia Device to your Document] [In soviet russia the Documents writes You] [Hey did you read the HIG ?] [We know what you want so who actually cares] {Cancel]
What a nice straw man argument.
In fact, I challenge you to show me one dialog like that in GNOME. The frobnicate was just an ester egg, if you can call it that. Not part of aproduction system.
I use a mac, and I love that ordering schema..why? Duh, stupid….because I’m right handed and my right hand is usually on the mouse……so I have to move the mouse less distance to Click the ok button.
Why not have it configurable, just like you can exchange the mouse buttons?
I use Gnome all the time, but I have to agree with the writer on this point. Gnome is backward from 99% of the rest of the computing world. While I believe that this is just an issue of preference, it makes Gnome *feel* “wrong” to new users. If you’re the underdog and shooting for widespread desktop adoption, that’s exactly the feeling you don’t want to impart to new users. You can argue user interface studies all day long, but most users will tell you that you got it backward.
Remember that almost everybody who will ever use Gnome has used another computer before, and likely a Windows machine with Mac at 2% market share. Being “standard” with the rest of the world is better, IMHO, even if that standard is a Windows standard.
As a question, though, what did Motif, NEWS, etc., do? Did they do it the Mac way or the Windows way? Yes, I know that they probably didn’t enforce the order, but what were the style guidelines saying at that point. I remember a lot of style stuff that was associated with Motif/CUA. It’s been so long since I used an old Motif app, however, that I simply can’t remember.
“The thing i dont understand is about the gnome choice is that the option you normally pick is (presumably) “ok”. If this is on the right of the dialog, it means the user has to read through the other options to get there.”
This is not true at all. First off, you would make the most common choice stand out. Color the whole button differently, highlight, make it pulse, whatever you can to make it stand out. This way it’s the first one noticed. Secondly, you read text from left to right, because you have to think about reading it. You notice the button that stands out first, because it stands out, not because of where it is.
To those of you just joining in, I’ll summarize: the article was an uninformed rant and has been torn apart. Thank you.
oGo started his own vendetta against certain people of GNOME some months ago. His real motivation to right comments on osnews.com and others is just to take revenge.
It has nothing to do with the topic itself.
> oGo started his own vendetta against certain
> people of GNOME some months ago.
This is pure nonsense. I don’t start a vendetta. I am only sick of this shit whenever I write a comment that some Jeff Waugh guy shows up and slanders me. If he believes to be the only one who is allowed to hit low then he can be sure that I can do the same.
And now stop kissing his butt as if you will receive anything from him. You are one of those who shouted out loudly how much you dislike Jeff and yet when it comes hard on hard you rush back and kiss his ass.
That’s an awesome community the GNOME one. A lot of friendly people who slander, bash and namecall each other. Where hate and violence is seed on a long run where someone hates someone else. But as soon as it comes hard on hard you put your tail in your hands and crawl back.
By the way read the chatlogs contained in above tarball. It’s you who made the biggest jokea about Jeff. This is your true chance for a change in the GNOME community. How long will you stand his evil attitude towards other people. How long will you look at what’s going on and take when he slaps on your left side of your face. You now hold him the right side of your face as well so he can slam into it even harder.
You and others shouldn’t act like little wino. You and some others know who started all this bullshit. And it certainly wasn’t me. I contributed to GNOME long before this Jeff Waugh guy has shown up. And did I cause trouble to GNOME before that ? NO. Once he entered the stage all the mud and dirt shown up and a lot of people nowadays are kissing his arse. I for my own tried to ignore his crap a lot of times and even now he is showing up on all places calling me a Troll. Who the fuck is that guy taking the right to call me a such while his manners and behaviour towards others is even more evil ?
It’s time to give him back something of his own medecine. He calls me a Troll in the public and I show the public what kind of real asshole he is. It’s that simple. If the GNOME community was really such a nice one with brave people then why no one until now has stand up and told him to fuck off ? At least for one time. I collect these chatlogs over and over for years, where people call up and whine when it comes to that evil Jeff guy and when it comes hard on hard everyone carries their tail up their hands.
I only show the public how the so called nice GNOME community rally is. And by the ways there is no need for me doing this. I only do so when I see the same people showing up on places like this slandering me. If they would leave me alone, then they can be sure that I leave them alone as well. If they can’t then I don’t see a reason to to defend myself.
And now stop kissing his butt as if you will receive anything from him. You are one of those who shouted out loudly how much you dislike Jeff and yet when it comes hard on hard you rush back and kiss his ass.
Oops, hand slipped to enter key. Sorry about prior message
And now stop kissing his butt as if you will receive anything from him. You are one of those who shouted out loudly how much you dislike Jeff and yet when it comes hard on hard you rush back and kiss his ass.
Or perhaps he’s one of those people that, not being Jeff’s friend, thinks you’re a troll too. *SHOCK*
BTW, I read the chatlogs. Very entertaining, seems like Jeff enjoys making you hysteric. I can’t blame him.
> Or perhaps he’s one of those people that, not being Jeff’s
> friend, thinks you’re a troll too. *SHOCK*
Actually he is one of those people who organized me some job for GNOME.de for Thomas Uhl working on some GNOME #C stuff. Compared to some others I still value Christian Meyer to be a good person. I can’t say this about others. The problem here is that Christian Meyer believes that I do all these talks because I have a vendetta with Jeff Waugh rather than this to be a real GNOME problem.
> BTW, I read the chatlogs. Very entertaining, seems like Jeff
> enjoys making you hysteric. I can’t blame him.
Excuse me, how would you feel if you get treatened that way ? Who knows maybe it’s you tomorrow. One day I will remind you when I see you totally pissed off about someone who permanently flames you for no reasons. If you think Jeff is a good guy and should continue with that behaviour then you are no tad better than him. Don’t forget I am not the first victim of him. There were a bunch of people before and after me. You can be the next one day depends how his mood is. How would you feel if such a person shows up on a public speech and slanders you infront of an audience of people. For what reasons ? I contributed long and much enough to GNOME. Probably not as much as any CORE paid developer did but quite enough I think. When I talk about the GNOME architecture and how bad a couple of parts are then this is definately NO flames. Who is Jeff Waugh to call me a Flamer when he has a shit clue about the bottom Framework of GNOME. He doesn’t code, his skills on that level are basicly non existing. Regardless of that I only bring up my very own opinion about GNOME and I can prove this every time. If you think I am wrong with my opinion then you have the chance to check it up yourself and prove me wrong. But proving me wrong should be done in a mature way. Going out telling everyone what kind of Flamer I am doesn’t help you either since it doesn’t change the real problem within GNOME.
If you and others are not willing to differ from this or understand this then I can’t help you either. But I do feel pissed and you can be sure – as long as Jeff and his minions continue bashing me as long I gonna pay back. Maybe you and some others don’t believe it (since you can’t understand it either) but there are enough people outside who may understand me and believes me. It’s a 50:50 game here. Is it hurting GNOME as project ? Yes, am I the one to blame ? No. Blame those who play god within GNOME and sit on their high chair and play asshole.
actually, you guys are repeating yourself.
i don’t think that’s worth the time (writing/reading).
there’s no archievement at all.
rick, when i added a comment, i didn’t kiss Jeff’s butt. try not to generalize things!
this will be my final comment…think about yourself, guys!