[HIG] REVIEW: Controls

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

Someone needs to go through this with their active language hat on, a
lot of passiveness here :)

More importantly, there is *still* nothing about notebooks, lists or
trees, which are all hugely important controls and much-abused in
current GUIs.


Controls
--------

- "It is important that controls are used appropriately and that they
follow standard behaviours...":  passive (and UK spelling of
"behaviour"); suggest "Use controls appropriately and ensure they follow
standard behaviors..."

- "Controls which behave...": should be "Controls that behave"

Buttons
-------

- This and every other subsection here needs a picture of the control in
question

- "Buttons should generally be labeled with verbs": passive and could be
more precise; suggest "You should generally label buttons with
imperative verbs".

- "In a dialog, one button may be made the default button.":  suggest a
brief description of what this means, i.e. "which is activated by
pressing Return".

- A list, table or screenshots of some correctly-labeled buttons with
ellipses/multiple words would be good

- Add links at end to dialogs chapter (for default button guidelines)
and captalization guidelines in layout chapter

Toggle Buttons
--------------

- Needs pic

- "...are buttons which remain depressed after they have been clicked
on": "which" should be "that", "on" should be removed, and the sentence
is only true if the button is part of a mutex group or, if it's not, if
it was depressed before you clicked on it.

- Need to discuss the same topics in all subsections; in this one, we're
missing a discussion of correct labelling/capitalization.  Guidelines on
when to use graphics rather than/as well as text on toggle buttons would
also be appropriate here.

- Add link at end to captalization guidelines in layout chapter

Checkboxes
----------

- Needs pic

- Needs guidelines for labelling/capitalization

- Needs examples of when to use two radio buttons v. one checkbox

- Needs description of when to used mixed state

- Add link at end to captalization guidelines in layout chapter

Radio Buttons
-------------

- This section should be the same size as the one on checkboxes, but is
much shorter!  Missing picture, labelling/capitalization guidelines,
mixed state guidelines, and description of how to handle controls that
are enabled/disabled when the radio button is selected/deselected

Option Menus
------------

- "They should not be used to...": passive, suggest "Do not use them
to..."

- "In general, radio buttons are preferable to option menus": what about
lists, are they preferable too?  (I'd say they're probably more
preferable in some cases, but it depends on the application of course)

- Again, no picture, and need more info on labelling/capitalization of
option menu items and label for the option menu itself

Combo Boxes
-----------

- Again, no picture, and nothing on labelling/capitilazation of the
combo box's label

- "Determinate progress bar" is currently called "measured progress bar"
in Feedback chapter; need to pick a term and use it consistently

- Add link at end to Feedback chapter, where appropriate use of progress
bars is covered in some detail

Status Bars
-----------

- No picture

- "Status bars should always be positioned at the bottom...": passive,
suggest "Only place the status bar at the bottom..."

- "Status bars should only contain information which it is not critical
that the user sees": passive and wordy, suggest "Only show non-critical
information in status bars"

- "Important information should be presented by other means": need
examples

- Need info on wording/capitalisation of status bar text, possible link
to capitalization guidelines again

Sliders and Spinboxes
---------------------

- I added these rough guidelines a while ago and haven't touched it
since, so it's also missing pictures and better-phrased guidelines

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson ireland sun com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems