Re: UI: "Direct manipulation" is in conflict with "Forgiveness"
Re: UI: "Direct manipulation" is in conflict with "Forgiveness"
- Subject: Re: UI: "Direct manipulation" is in conflict with "Forgiveness"
- From: Charles Srstka <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 18:49:13 -0500
Here's how I do it. I load the settings into my controls when I open
the prefs window, and I check the controls and write the prefs when the
user clicks the "OK" button. I don't actually write the changes until
the user clicks that button. If they click Cancel, it just closes the
window, and nothing is changed. In either case, there is no
confirmation dialog box (there doesn't need to be! That's what the OK
and Cancel buttons serve as).
Charles
On Wednesday, September 18, 2002, at 12:01 PM, Jay Prince wrote:
Apple encourages the concept of direct manipualtion-- the user is able
to control what they want, rather than have to use an intermediary to
control it. It also encourages forgiveness-- if the user makes a
mistake, they should be able to undo it.
In the HIGs, Direct Manipulation is expressed using the drag and drop
metaphor. But to me, I've always thought about it as when you're
changing settings, you're directly manipulating them. (EG
Preferences.)
Some applications work this way and the preference pane just has a
close button. You make changes and they are automatically saved,
there is no undo.
Other applications have "save" and "cancel" buttons in their dialog
boxes.
Is one of these patterns better than the other?
I could easily cache all the changes the user makes inside of my
(rather complicated and extensive) preferneces panel. But that brings
up the possibility if they say "Cancel" that I discard them all--
should I then bring up an alert saying "Do your really want to discard
the changes you made to X, Y, Z, Q, and J?" (with two buttons
"Discard" and "Cancel"? Which would be weird because they would be
Cancelling a Cancel button press.)
Going down this path gave me the thought that I should have such an
alert, but the concern that its getting clunky there.
The changes they make can be undone-- its not a "loss of data"
situation, except that they'd have to re-set them. Some of the
settings are involved-- they require making two or three decisions to
set the setting.
Any thoughts on which has primacy? Forgiveness (and a possible
confusing alert) or direct manipultion (and the possibility that a few
minutes of work may be lost.) With direct manipulation, if their
changes are in error, there's no way to go back to the configuration
they may have set three months ago.
I don't think this is a very big issue, as the preferences are
relatively easy to figure out.... but I wonder what the appropriate
policy is in general.
Jay
_______________________________________________
cocoa-dev mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/cocoa-dev
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
_______________________________________________
cocoa-dev mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/cocoa-dev
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.