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Date:      Mon, 17 Sep 2001 22:30:17 -0500
From:      Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>
To:        Stijn Hoop <stijn@win.tue.nl>
Cc:        hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Recent changes to libdialog are weird
Message-ID:  <15270.49097.5043.451524@guru.mired.org>
In-Reply-To: <20010917141108.C455@pcwin002.win.tue.nl>
References:  <20010917135045.B455@pcwin002.win.tue.nl> <95866.1000728005@axl.seasidesoftware.co.za> <20010917141108.C455@pcwin002.win.tue.nl>

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Stijn Hoop <stijn@win.tue.nl> types:
> I think everyone is qualified - user interface isn't about qualification,
> it just needs to be non-intrusive and easily accessible for everyone. [1]

Well, if it's not easily accessible to everyone, then it's clearly
failed. That's the easy part.

As for non-intrusive, I think nearly everyone is equally qualified,
including me. I've leared the hard way that UI's that I think of as
non-intrusive and obvious are a major PITA for most people, so I
stopped doing UI design. Unfortunately, most other designers at my
qualification level didn't stop, so most UIs suck. The exceptions are
accidental, or the product of those few people who are better-qualifed
than "nearly everyone".

> [1] Yes this is an ideal which probably can't be achieved - but we can try to
>     make things better, can't we? :)

Depends on how you decide what's better. If you use "feels better to
me", then it's not at all clear that you're moving in the right
direction. If you use a quantitive measure of some kind - the GOMS
keystroke model seems to be a good fit here, but I'm not really
qualified - then you can not only tell that it's better, but how much
better, and how close to perfect you've gotten.

	<mike
--
Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>			http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.

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