New Desktop/Icon Thread

[Agathon]

Asher, only a monkey couldn't work out how to operate the Search Box. You're splitting hairs and making objections that have no practical import. Even my wife worked out how to do it first go.

I guess your HIC training missed "The Blindingly Obvious 101".

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Asher, only a monkey couldn't work out how to operate the Search Box. You're splitting hairs and making objections that have no practical import. Even my wife worked out how to do it first go.

I guess your HIC training missed "The Blindingly Obvious 101".

Blingingly Obvious 101 is all of the freshmen philosophy courses.

There are way better ways to make that search dialog box less ambiguous and more precise, without making it harder to use. Apple just didn't think very hard.

It's kinda funny how your argument revolves around "well people can figure out how to do it" -- that's not the point. The idea is you can LOOK at an interface, a screenshot, and know exactly what everything does. It's one of the fundamental guidelines.

You cannot do that with that dialog, and it's something that's easy to do.

I don't consider myself a novice user, and I'd have to click the + buttons (and try clicking the - buttons, since they don't look greyed out at all to me), to see what they do.

And that right there is a sign of a bad interface.

[Asher]

Here's the XP Classic search interface.

It's unambiguous and more obvious what you're doing, no?

[Drake Tungsten]

I remember Asher once argued that having a big, green "X" icon for Microsoft Excel X would confuse people (I'm sure Drake remembers that one).

It was indeed a classic...

[Asher]

It is funny, but it's true. She didn't know what "Excel" was and was afraid to click it, since an "X" is the same shape as the Windows Close thing, so she thought it might "close" the computer since it was so large on the desktop...

For all this talk about the Mac being easier to use, it's bull****. It's counter-intuitive to have a single menubar, detached from the window it controls. That's the main thing.

Another example is all of the little things, like that search dialog.

You guys wouldn't know the first thing about designing a decent interface. You mock me for nitpicking inconsistencies and ambiguities, but that's how great interfaces are made.

[Drake Tungsten]

[Flinx]

I have to agree with Asher in this case, the XP interface in unambiguous whereas the other one is not. It does have a pretty gay rainbow however, what is that for?

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Flinx
I have to agree with Asher in this case, the XP interface in unambiguous whereas the other one is not. It does have a pretty gay rainbow however, what is that for?

The XP interface is missing a way to specify multiple optional keywords, multiple date ranges, and so on.

[Asher]

What good is selecting multiple date ranges if you don't know if it'll be an AND, OR, BETWEEN, or NOTBETWEEN?

[Ted Striker]

In other news, DragonflyBSD 1.0 is out.

Off to a very nice start!

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Asher
What good is selecting multiple date ranges if you don't know if it'll be an AND, OR, BETWEEN, or NOTBETWEEN?

I am not familiar with the interface, but I suspect that an And/Or field would pop-up somewhere. This fight is stupid.:P

[chequita guevara]

Two icons, simple grey background. Two many icons and a complex image in the background slow down your computer. I like fast, fast, fast.

[Asher]

Apparently it doesn't let you select multiple date ranges in the first place:


It just forces you to click to reveal the option to have a date range.

[ixnay]

Hay I'll post my desktop.

Two monitors are better than one

Click thumbnail for fullsize:

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Asher
Apparently it doesn't let you select multiple date ranges in the first place:

It just forces you to click to reveal the option to have a date range.

Fine. You win the debate. Congratulations.