Re: OT: Win 7... coming unpinned

Daniel Johnson stated in post ArednThxZZdTxmjXnZ2dnUVZ_oGdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
on 11/7/09 4:36 AM:

It is indeed the same in the final release. They seem to have made
jump-lists and context menus slightly inconsistent.

Wording, capitalization and icons are different. What is the same? Well..
other than what they do.

Well, the wording is different in that the phrase "this program" has been
inserted in the longer one. Otherwise they are the same.

Wording, capitalization and icons are different. Other than that, well,
sure... they are the same. What else is there? We have already discussed
that the menus look different, but I have no problem with that (for reasons
previously discussed).

The jump lists have the same background as the same menu, and in the case of
this item anyway, the same highlight. Different border, though.

[snip]
That's penny ante stuff. Installing wood paneling on one of your flagship
apps- now that's a whole new order of inconsistency. :D

Not that I think it makes much sense, but it is a context-change to that app.
This is OS wide.

A "context-change" to "that app"? It seems to me that this argument will
justify pretty much any inconsistency you are likely to see. I find this sort
of generic argument unconvincing. I feel that which proves everything, proves
nothing- if you see what I mean.

Anyway, jump lists are strictly a Windows Explorer thing; they are not
OS-wide.

Research shows that making changes in looks from one context to another
helps usability... but that still does not explain why Apple has that *one*
app look so different.

I did not say anything bad about the different look of the menus... that
helps build context and is not a bad thing as far as I can tell.

Then presumably the icons and the longer text are also not a bad thing, in
like vein.

Having menus look different to show different context, as they do with the
two menus I show, is fine.

I may have missed something; the two menus I recall were both shown at the
same time, cascading style. Surely that's the same context.

Not cascading... if they were they should be the same, I would think. One
is a right-click menu on an item in another menu. By the way, OS X does not
have this and I think, at times, it would be a benefit to advanced users.

Having two commands which you have to work out if they mean the same thing or
not is not a good thing. As I said, though, it is not like this is a
deal-breaker for Win 7. It is a sign of not thinking through details, but
not a reason to run from the OS.

Be careful not to confuse "I don't agree with this" with "They had no reason
to do this" or "They didn't think about this."

Having two commands that do the same thing but have different wording,
capitalization and icons is pretty hard to defend.

Everything is tradeoffs. I think you'd be hard-pressed to show any practical
disadvantage to the extra phrase here.

User confusion.

That phrase can be inserted without expanding the jump-list to take more
space; the same is not true of the context menu. Further, changing context
menus everywhere to use a wordier style would be very hard to do- simply
setting a slightly different standard for jump lists is easier.

I don't think we can say that Microsoft didn't think about this.

Is there any sign they did?

[snip- Time Machine]
I do not think so, but even it if it were it is gratuitously inconsistent
to
much higher degree than jump lists.

There are benefits to showing context changes... there is a difference
between user-based inconsistencies and arbitrary inconsistencies.

This time machine one is clearly arbitrary. Serious. What's the big context
change? You're just looking at different data in the same app. Do you expect
the entire screen to transmogrify when you open a folder? That's what this
is.

You are not looking at just a folder... you are looking at achieved data...
and it is made for a very different use-case than just digging through
general folders. If you prefer to look through folders, though, you can do
that, too.

Windows' versioning feature does this far better: it's consistent. Old
versions are presented like backups- as folders you can browse, just like a
backup copy on a CD.

I would love to see usability studies comparing the two.

For example, the menus I show on Win 7 look different... seems users based to
show what the menu is associated with. Might not be as easy to tell if the
two were the exact same. But the wording only makes things confusing...
seems arbitrary to me.

The more specific wording is perhaps less confusing.

Indeed, this may be a justification (or a rationalization) of the wording.
It adds the phrase "this program" and the icon when the icon you got the
menu from is *not* the program to be unpinned, but is rather a taskbar
entry.

Then what program? There is no "this program" if you do not count the task
bar icon as a program. Hmmm... what happens if you have the icons not
grouped? Same wording? If so, users might think they are unpinning that
window... the lack of focus of the taskbar leads to this type of confusion.

When you right click upon the program's own icon, you do not get the
"this program" clarification, since context menus are supposed to operate
upon the thing clicked anyway.

That's a thin reed to hang a defense upon, I admit. But there's (very
slightly) more substance there than the "context change" argument, I feel.

Context-change indications make sense... though, I have agreed, having just
one program have such a big change makes little sense to me. Having menus
for "special" UI features makes more sense (dock and taskbar menus look
different than other menus... I have no problem with that).

--
[INSERT .SIG HERE]


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