Re: A few questions about GNOME2

[Gregory Merchan <merchan phys lsu edu>]

On Sat, Apr 27, 2002 at 02:16:00PM -0400, Dave Bordoley wrote:
> On Sat, 2002-04-27 at 14:15, Uri David Akavia wrote:
<snip>
> > 3. Instant apply yet no Undo
> > This is slightly problematic - it seems like a UI decision, but I don't 
> > understand the logic. The combination of instant apply and no undo (or 
> > cancel) makes it impossible to return to prior settings. Could you 
> > explain it to me?
> 
> this is by design, we changed the preferences so you can't break
> anything so in my opinion this isn't an issue. But maybe more user
> testing is needed. I really like instant apply.

When I wrote the section on this in the HIG, they were most certainly
supposed to have Undo (and possibly Defaults and Help, each per page).

Last I was paying attention, Undo and Defaults were scrapped not for UI
design but for lack of time to implement them. If it was decided to not
have them ever - particularly Undo, which is common to the major
platforms which have instant apply - then that decision was presented
on no public mailing list of which I am aware. Furthermore, if that
design decision was made, then it was not done on the basis of 
experience, any presented user testing, or any heuristic I've ever read
about. Indeed, not having Undo runs counter to experience and what I've
read; and, following Dick's lead, user testing too.

The HIG has certainly changed since I quit it and is supposed to reflect
what the libraries support, so it may say nothing about this. The HIG,
last I looked (HEAD version) says nothing about regular dialogs either,
but there is still no way to avoid those. If the HIG now specifically
excludes Undo and Defaults, then fix it.


Cheers,
Greg Merchan