[Libreoffice] [UX] LO status bar annoyances

[Christoph Noack]

Hi all!

Am Mittwoch, den 01.12.2010, 08:12 +0100 schrieb Sebastian Spaeth:
> On Tue, 30 Nov 2010 22:31:44 +0100, Christoph Noack wrote:
[...]
> > STATUS BAR
> > For example, the little '*' is mainly caused by the need for a very compact
> > symbol - here, please think in 480px width.
> 
> Is there still a little *? I've never seen one in current LOs...

Nope. I just tried to explain why software makers started to use '*'. To
my own surprise, this "not that self-explanatory thing" survived a
rather long time :-)

[...]
>   * It provides access to some IMHO rarely used functionalities where I
>     would love to see other things in that space. Has the
>     UI project collected data on how often people *intentionally* :-)
>     changed from INSERT to OVERWRITE mode?

Hehe, nice try ;-))) I don't know whether this is collected by the User
Feedback program (because: can be changed via keyboard, and such input
is usually "missed" because of privacy reasons ...).

However, if you don't observe a subject (a.k.a. user), then it is very
hard to know whether a certain action has been intentionally or not. If
you get enough data, one can assume that the majority of data collected
is based on "intentional" use.

Another alternative is to analyze such data on the "what did the user
after this or that" approach - but such data isn't available to us.
Although it is available at Oracle in the "real database", we are
currently only able to look at plain exports.

But, some of the items do serve a different purpose ... please read on.

[...]

> Thanks for the shot, the zoom slider is actually the one thing I use
> more often and which I am quite happy with. Naively, I would say you
> don't need + and - buttons if you have the slider available. I could
> also do away with the percentage number as long as I have the mark at
> the 100% zoom level as a visual aid.

It is great to see the "I would", or "I use". Because, this is a very
personal issue and also dependent on the task people are using
LibreOffice for. Thus, the magic is to work out a solution that can be
used by the majority of users, for the majority of tasks.

Example 1: Having the +/- buttons may be helpful for people whose
ability for precise movements decreased. You might have seen the
discussion covering "accessibility", and "design for all". A click on a
button is far easier than pressing a key, and dragging the zoom slider.
Okay, you might say that simple clicks on the desired position will work
as well - but do most people know that? I doubt that, because it cannot
be derived from "natural / physical" objects.

Example 2: Buttons may not only be action elements, they do convey
information. So removing the buttons - what's left? A zoom slider
without any indication what is increasing/decreasing the current view?
So removing the icons requires to re-add some other information ...
okay, than back to buttons :-)

> > You may notice, that the selection modes thing has been changed, and
> > that all the items in the status bar got their own visual symbol to
> > improve the representation. I also added "no outline level" ("Keine
> > Gliederungsebene") to teach the user what the slot is used for (today,
> > it is empty). This might have helped to reduce the hazzles one could
> > read today on the TDF discuss list [4].
> 
> I kind of like the selection icons, what I do *not* like is that a) now
> 4 buttons occupy space for a rarely used function and b) there is no
> visual aid as to what these do (the icons look a bit like they could
> perform some alignment at first glance), so I'd propose to put the
> currently selected icon in *one* button, which pops up all 4 modes in a
> vertical row with a "Selection Mode" header (and a link to the help
> entry) above it all.

As I initially said - today I would do it differently. The original aim
of the mockup (with draft icons, by the way) was to come up with the
Zoom Slider, but not to change any other functionality. However ...

The buttons do convey information - they provide information on modes.
Modes change the behavior of the system (here: software), but sometimes
it is hard for the user to guess what happened. Thus, it is required to
provide feedback ... and may it only be helpful for users to see "Oh,
that's different this time. What went wrong?" The selection mode is one
of the bad examples of "a less experienced user will never know what
happened".

One of the "funny" things to watch are users, that got trapped by the
(Shift + Left Alt) language selection within Microsoft Windows XP. A
mess ...

> > but we should be careful to remove something which had been
> > intentionally added by Microsoft some years ago.
> 
> If we talk about being inspired by Microsoft, I would love to ditch some
> items for a permanent word count as I've seen in MS Office 2010. Much
> more useful status information.

Agreed - the current word count is "grrrr". But, since there had been
some discussions (e.g. on user lists) when the feature was introduced,
I'm not that sure whether it is required all the time. It would be nice
to know if something like a "docked toolbar like thing" showing the
current word count of the document, and the word count of the current
selection might be even more helpful.

> To sum up my mail item: To do away with lots of my frustration we would:
> - Not have inconsistent click-double click behavor

Fully agreed.

> - Lose *some* of the separators/group boxes and don't reserve the space
> when the status icon is not shown.

Or (my take) show a status all the time - if this doesn't cause too much
clutter or visual noise.

> - Don't launch actions clicking on apparently empty space, or show
> tooltips there.

Yep.

> - Either do away, or give some more clue as to what Selection Mode is.

Still thinking about it ...

> - Change the icon of the "changed indicator" (but I will elaborate on
> that).

I think you read the mail :-)


That's it! And, thanks to you guys ... a very nice discussion!

Cheers,
Christoph