[Libreoffice-ux-advise] Meeting to discuss the Template manager lively?

[Mirek M.]

Hi everyone,
Sorry I couldn't make the chat (I'm typing this last minute at school in
class).
That said, let me at least comment on the issues raised:

On Thu, Dec 6, 2012 at 1:14 PM, Cedric Bosdonnat <cbosdonnat at suse.com>wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> After having some feedback of several users in the french contributors,
> I would like to have a small chat with you to discuss the too innovative
> things of that dialog.
>

Did they test the dialog after you implemented single-click? (I myself have
had issues with the double-click browser.)

>
> First of all there is no need to think about tablet-oriented design
> since this UI will need to be written once again for the tablets.
>

1) All the UI decisions have good reasoning behind them for mouse users.
They're not tablet-specific.
2) When you say tablets, you mean devices that run Android and iOS.
However, that completely ignores devices with a touch screen that run
desktop operating systems, the number of which, with the introduction of
Windows 8, is rapidly increasing.

>
> The feedback I have:
>   * Single click is not consistent with the rest of the application. Can
> be misleading for users
>

There is a strong case to be made against double-click [1]. Actually,
double-click is unintuitive in and of itself, and, on traditional desktop
software, it's used so inconsistently that it's just something the user has
to learn in each application (web and desktop), even though long-time users
might not think so. Fortunately, software is moving away from double-click.
But the only way to do this is iteratively, thus there must be some
inconsistencies while changing over. (GNOME 3 is undergoing the same
process.)

But rather than talk about why not double-click, here's the reason why we
should use single-click.
The primary function of the template dialog is to open an instance of a
template -- that's what it will be used for most of the time. It therefore
makes sense to associate it to the simpler, faster action, single-click.

  * Selection is not obvious
>

Are you sure?
The same type of selection has been tried and tested in KDE's Dolphin and
in web applications. elementary's also adopting this type of selection in
its default file browser.

  * Adding a "Cancel" button would be nice
>

It makes more sense to think of the Template manager as a standalone
dialog, much like the Start Center.
Unlike modal dialogs, the Template manager has its own purpose.
(I hope to add some more thoughts at home, no time now.)

Having innovating UI is great, but we need to keep it consistent across
> the whole application. We also need to take care of our poor users still
> sticking to old way to design ;)
>
> I would be in favor of:
>   * Using tabs as designed by Alexander
>   * Revert to single click for selection + double click for the action
>   * Remove the selection mode completely (even the triggering from the
> right click)
>   * Add the Cancel button at least for the "Save As Template" case.
>
> For a meeting, I can easily manage to find time during office hours, but
> outside it starts to be difficult. What about right after ESC today?
>
> Regards,
> --
> Cedric


[1] http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2004/10/double-click-must-die.html
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