[Krypton]

Ahem

[hayesk]

I still prefer a one button mouse to this day. And actually, Apple's mice have always been good quality.

[DeathMan]

the hockey puck sort of sucked, but I got used to it quickly enough. I'm using a one button mouse at home, but have a 5 button logitech at work. Great for expose.

[wdlove]

I have always just used the Apple one button mouse.

[strictlyplaid]

I've heard the arguments for one-button, but to me they just don't hold any water. I got a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer, with the then-new optical laser, to go with my Blueberry iMac, and I've never looked back. And, I still use that mouse to this day even though the iMac has long since hit the dust bin of history!

[OpenStep]

That auction gives me a great idea with what to do with this old compaq armada my friend gave me last week

[tooki]

Originally posted by strictlyplaid:
I got a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer, with the then-new optical laser,

That's not a laser mouse, it's just a red light. Only the Logitech MX1000 (which came out this fall) actually uses a laser.

tooki

[Gankdawg]

I've been wondering what to do with the mouse that came with my G5. And my G4 for that matter.

One button mouse:

[strictlyplaid]

Originally posted by tooki:
That's not a laser mouse, it's just a red light. Only the Logitech MX1000 (which came out this fall) actually uses a laser.

tooki

But "laser" just sounds so much cooler than "red LED"!

Ah well, so much for that fantasy. No matter what's in it, though, it's still working great after... 4 years? Or however long it's been. Worth every penny I paid for it.

[mitchell_pgh]

Apple MUST maintain the one button mouse.

Part of the simplicity of the Mac revolves around the developers being FORCED to make the GUI accessible to a single button mouse and thus new/novice users. Also, as touch screens become more popular, it will make all the more sense. (try to right click with your index finger). This is one of the few areas where I feel Apple is doing the right thing. They support two button mice, yet default with one.

[lngtones]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Apple MUST maintain the one button mouse.

Part of the simplicity of the Mac revolves around the developers being FORCED to make the GUI accessible to a single button mouse and thus new/novice users. Also, as touch screens become more popular, it will make all the more sense. (try to right click with your index finger). This is one of the few areas where I feel Apple is doing the right thing. They support two button mice, yet default with one.

Developers aren't "FORCED" to do anything actually.

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by strictlyplaid:
But "laser" just sounds so much cooler than "red LED"!

Ah well, so much for that fantasy. No matter what's in it, though, it's still working great after... 4 years? Or however long it's been. Worth every penny I paid for it.

I've got the same mouse... good stuff. At work I've got the one button... needless to say, I don't lose sleep over it.

[tooki]

Originally posted by lngtones:
Developers aren't "FORCED" to do anything actually.

No, but the Mac human interface guidelines dictate that an application should be operable with a one-button mouse.

While there's no way for Apple to enforce this (other than disabling multibutton support, which they clearly have not done), the fact that Apple ships only one-button mice makes it rather important that every app work with a one-button mouse.

The only Mac app that I know of that requires a multibutton mouse is Maya. But it's such a specialized app that the average user will never even have heard of it, much less used it.

tooki

[alligator]

On a touch screen, it would be cool if you could right click with your middle finger. Maybe the touch patterns are different. Now there's an invention that would make touch screens easier to use!

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by tooki:
No, but the Mac human interface guidelines dictate that an application should be operable with a one-button mouse.

While there's no way for Apple to enforce this (other than disabling multibutton support, which they clearly have not done), the fact that Apple ships only one-button mice makes it rather important that every app work with a one-button mouse.

The only Mac app that I know of that requires a multibutton mouse is Maya. But it's such a specialized app that the average user will never even have heard of it, much less used it.

tooki

Apple doesn't even follow their own HIG.
Why should anyone else?

Luckily at UMCP they have 2 button + scroll mice on all the G5s.

[tooki]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
Apple doesn't even follow their own HIG.
Why should anyone else?

Where does Apple require the use of multibutton mice?

tooki

[MacNStein]

Originally posted by tooki:
Where does Apple require the use of multibutton mice?

tooki

Shake.

System Requirements:

Power Mac G5; Power Mac G4 or PowerBook G4 with 800MHz or faster PowerPC G4 processor; or Xserve G5 or Xserve G4 with 1GHz or faster PowerPC processor
Mac OS X v10.3.2 or later
QuickTime 6.5 or later
256MB of RAM or more
1GB of available disk space for caching and temporary files
Graphics card with at least 32MB of video memory and OpenGL hardware acceleration
Display with 1280-by-1024-pixel resolution and 24-bit color
Three-button mouse

http://www.apple.com/shake/specs.html

[hayesk]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
Shake.

b]Three-button mouse

http://www.apple.com/shake/specs.html [/B]

Good point - however if Apple wrote Shake from the ground up, you could bet that it wouldn't have that three button requirement.

[strictlyplaid]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Apple MUST maintain the one button mouse.

Part of the simplicity of the Mac revolves around the developers being FORCED to make the GUI accessible to a single button mouse and thus new/novice users. Also, as touch screens become more popular, it will make all the more sense. (try to right click with your index finger). This is one of the few areas where I feel Apple is doing the right thing. They support two button mice, yet default with one.

Yeah, I've heard the simplicity argument before. I don't know, I guess right-click and scroll wheel seem simplifying to me, not complicating. But on the other hand, as a some-time computer lab employee, even smart people can be easily perplexed by seemingly intuitive interfaces... so maybe you're on to something here.

I wouldn't mind the two-button being a free BTO upgrade though.

[Superchicken]

I just hope Apple eventually adds either mapable touch sections to their mouse, or a scroll pad or something, the Apple default mouse could use some work. That said I do NOT want mutli button on a laptop.

[tooki]

But Shake is also one of those specialty programs like Maya that 99.9% of users will never hear of, much less use. For super-high-end apps like that, where pretty much all the users will be power users, requiring multibutton mice is OK.

tooki

[Zimmerman]

If I were to give a Logitech MX310 to everybody who says they are cool with a one button mouse to use free for three months at the end of which they can either give me the mouse back or pay for it, I can guarentee every single one would happily pay for it. After a very short period of time the right click, scroll wheel, pageup/down features on a decent mouse become as intuitive as command-W.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by strictlyplaid:
Yeah, I've heard the simplicity argument before. I don't know, I guess right-click and scroll wheel seem simplifying to me, not complicating. But on the other hand, as a some-time computer lab employee, even smart people can be easily perplexed by seemingly intuitive interfaces... so maybe you're on to something here.

http://www.techtales.com/ttales0504.html#tale15

Many, many stories like this on that site.

From personal experience, I can also say that I've had experiences like this (my parents). The thing is that on the Mac, there'd be a way to explain how to do the same task without requiring the use of the right click.

[Lancer409]

Originally posted by Zimmerman:
If I were to give a Logitech MX310 to everybody who says they are cool with a one button mouse to use free for three months at the end of which they can either give me the mouse back or pay for it, I can guarentee every single one would happily pay for it. After a very short period of time the right click, scroll wheel, pageup/down features on a decent mouse become as intuitive as command-W.

nah .. i bet they'd opt for a MX510 if not mx1000

MX510 on the pc box, and sidetrack/microsoft notebook mouse (2 buttons and a push in clickwheel)

[Millennium]

If you don't like the one button mouse, that's fine; get one with more buttons. I use a three-button trackball myself, and I used to use a four-button one before I had to get a new one.

However, the one-button mouse must continue to be the default, so that developers will never be able to assume that the user has more than one button. Awful interfaces like the original GIMP 1.0 (where all of the menus were right-click only) have resulted from this assumption.

[Thorin]

I use a logitech mouse most of the time with my powerbook. I did some work for a while using G4 with a one-button mouse though, and it was no bother. I missed the right click to start with (especially as I was using photoshop a fair bit), but got used to it quickly enough. The one thing that really did bother me the whole time though was the lack of a scroll wheel of some kind. They really do need to add that imo.

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by lngtones:
Developers aren't "FORCED" to do anything actually.

That's like saying I'm not FORCED to obey the law.

With that argument, you could also say that developers aren't forced to make applications that ONLY use one monitor. I guess I COULD build a program that required 2 screens, but good luck... and prepare for the backlash.

Because Apple ships a one button mouse, they ARE forced if they want to sell programs. It's not like a developer that's trying to gain mainstream acceptance can give "Oh, just go buy a multi-button mouse" as a solution. They need to develop with the single button mouse as the default, and I'm comfortable with it. I'm more of a power user, so I have upgraded my home mouse... and the OS supports it. I don't see the problem.

[hayesk]

Originally posted by Zimmerman:
If I were to give a Logitech MX310 to everybody who says they are cool with a one button mouse to use free for three months at the end of which they can either give me the mouse back or pay for it, I can guarentee every single one would happily pay for it. After a very short period of time the right click, scroll wheel, pageup/down features on a decent mouse become as intuitive as command-W.

I doubt it. What makes it so much better than any other multibutton mouse I've used and didn't like?

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

Originally posted by tooki:
The only Mac app that I know of that requires a multibutton mouse is Maya. But it's such a specialized app that the average user will never even have heard of it, much less used it.

I've used Maya with a 1 button mouse, you just have to edit the maya.env file to say MAYA_MAC_BUTTON_MAP = 1, works just fine. I know 3.5 used to actually come with a 3 button mouse, but I don't know if Alias does that anymore.

I just want a decent USB 3 button mouse with NO scroll thingy. And frankyly, nothing's been more comfortable than the old hockey puck mouse and the MacAlly plastic shell that went around it. Nice and big!

[strictlyplaid]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
http://www.techtales.com/ttales0504.html#tale15

Many, many stories like this on that site.

From personal experience, I can also say that I've had experiences like this (my parents). The thing is that on the Mac, there'd be a way to explain how to do the same task without requiring the use of the right click.

LOL, some of those stories bring back painful memories. I particularly liked this one:

"My good friend bought a new computer very recently. She's never operated a computer before in her entire life. While I was visiting her, we were looking at a bunch of immature joke websites she just had to show me. Then she tells me something interesting. She said that her "MSN can automatically track and shut down websites that have done things against the law. MSN shuts those guys down."

I wasn't sure what she meant by this, but I knew that that doesnt happen. Anway, I didn't say anything to her, since she is now freely giving computer advice since she's an "expert" now.

When I got home that night I realized what happens. While she opens her websites, she keeps opening more windows to new websites without closing the others. While more and more junk is running in the background (I noticed she was doing some of this at her house) she opens yet another window to a website, finally overloading the memory, and gets this message: "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down"."

[tooki]

Originally posted by GoGoReggieXPowars:
I've used Maya with a 1 button mouse, you just have to edit the maya.env file to say MAYA_MAC_BUTTON_MAP = 1, works just fine. I know 3.5 used to actually come with a 3 button mouse, but I don't know if Alias does that anymore.

Huh.

I wonder how that works, since Maya relies on using all the modifier keys in combination with each of the 3 buttons.

tooki

[MacNStein]

Originally posted by tooki:
But Shake is also one of those specialty programs like Maya that 99.9% of users will never hear of, much less use. For super-high-end apps like that, where pretty much all the users will be power users, requiring multibutton mice is OK.

tooki

Still, it is made by Apple and requires multiple buttons. That proves that they don't always follow their own rules.

[effgee]

Originally posted by tooki:
... the Mac human interface guidelines dictate that an application should be operable with a one-button mouse. ...

Yeah, but that particular "simplicity" line of argumentation is bogus at best - imho it's plainly false. As far as interface design is concerned, one button that does three things is not necessarily more user-friendly than three buttons that do one thing each.

What's easier for a novice to memorize - highlight an icon by clicking it once, going to the File menu and choosing a color label or simply clicking the desired icon with the right mouse button and choosing label from the context menu?

What's easier for a novice - going to the bottom of the scrollbar of any window and clicking the arrow widget to scroll down (and back up along the scroll bar when scrolling up) or simply using a scroll wheel on the mouse?

Simplicity for simplicity's sake is (almost) as bad as feature bloat.

[hayesk]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
Still, it is made by Apple and requires multiple buttons. That proves that they don't always follow their own rules.

Nitpick: Actually it wasn't made by Apple. It was only bought by Apple a year or two ago. Maybe in future versions they won't require a multibutton mouse. Who knows?

[Luca Rescigno]

Look at the Action button introduced with Panther. Apple's going to great lengths to not "require" a 2 button mouse, but the action button seems like a cop-out to me. Think of it this way - there are certain functions that the action button does that can only be done if you have it in your toolbar. In fact, there are a number of Apple apps that require toolbar buttons for full functionality. Preview, for example, can only play animated GIFs using the "Play" button, which you have to manually add to the toolbar yourself. I think that's just as bad as requiring a right-click to get to certain functions.

[entrox]

I love the mouse the came with my Powermac and I actually used multi-button mice before I got my first Mac. The only thing that bothers me, is that it is practically unmaintanable - I can't clean it without breaking the plastic apart.

[hayesk]

Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:
Look at the Action button introduced with Panther. Apple's going to great lengths to not "require" a 2 button mouse, but the action button seems like a cop-out to me. Think of it this way - there are certain functions that the action button does that can only be done if you have it in your toolbar.

I don't have a Mac in front of me now, but I'm pretty sure all of those functions are available in the Finder menus.

In fact, there are a number of Apple apps that require toolbar buttons for full functionality. Preview, for example, can only play animated GIFs using the "Play" button, which you have to manually add to the toolbar yourself. I think that's just as bad as requiring a right-click to get to certain functions.

I agree - they should add that command to the menu bar if it is not there. Send feedback to Apple asking them to fix it.

[tooki]

Originally posted by effgee:
Yeah, but that particular "simplicity" line of argumentation is bogus at best - imho it's plainly false. As far as interface design is concerned, one button that does three things is not necessarily more user-friendly than three buttons that do one thing each.

What's easier for a novice to memorize - highlight an icon by clicking it once, going to the File menu and choosing a color label or simply clicking the desired icon with the right mouse button and choosing label from the context menu?

What's easier for a novice - going to the bottom of the scrollbar of any window and clicking the arrow widget to scroll down (and back up along the scroll bar when scrolling up) or simply using a scroll wheel on the mouse?

Simplicity for simplicity's sake is (almost) as bad as feature bloat.

Actual usability studies with real people found that people get confused with which button to press. The ideal mouse navigation (which was pioneered with the Lisa and Mac) is "direct manipulation" -- avoiding commands altogether.

Some early mouse UIs used one mouse button to select an icon and another to open. You can imagine that many users launched things that they wanted to select, and became frustrated when the thing they wanted to open refused to. A single mouse button, with a UI designed for it, gave us the double-click, which nobody (save for those with motor skill disabilities) has trouble with.

One of the BIG problems with UIs that rely on contextual menus only is that since they're contextual (and thus, invalid commands are not shown), they make it difficult, if not impossible, to explore the features of the program. Normal menus always show all the commands, and just gray out the invalid ones, so you know they're there. A contextual menu is like a club where you have to know the secret password.

That is why Apple's UI guidelines (which I hold in fairly high esteem) say that everything that's in a contextual menu should also be available in the normal places. The Finder adheres to this.

The scroll wheel -- which isn't a mouse button, I might add (though most scroll mice now have also made it a third button) -- is a useful direct manipulation device. Even if Apple never adds another button, I would love to see them add a scrolling device.

But, with the possible exception of specialized, very-high-end apps like Maya and Shake that are always operated by expert users, I maintain that requiring single-button application functionality is the best way to make programs functional for the widest audience. Requiring it to work with a single button makes sure that programs are written so that (hopefully) my mom could use them. Contextual menus (which my mom will never touch) can still be there for the power users like us who appreciate them.

tooki

[MacNStein]

Originally posted by hayesk:
Nitpick: Actually it wasn't made by Apple. It was only bought by Apple a year or two ago. Maybe in future versions they won't require a multibutton mouse. Who knows?

So? They own it now and could have made adjustments to the code to change it... after all, as you said, they've had it for a couple years.

[hayesk]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
So? They own it now and could have made adjustments to the code to change it... after all, as you said, they've had it for a couple years.

As said in my post, maybe it will come. Do you expect an upgrade just for that? Existing users won't care because they already know the program.

[effgee]

Originally posted by tooki:
Actual usability studies with real people found that people get confused with which button to press. ...

That I got to read. Link(s)? How new/old are they?

[tooki]

Umm, no linkage available. See if your local library (perhaps a university library) has copies of the debut issue (Jan 1984) of Macworld, and the articles about the original Mac and Lisa in 1983-84 issues of Byte magazine. I don't remember which article it was in (cumulatively, it's dozens, possibly more than a hundred, pages of text), and unfortunately, it doesn't have numbers, but at least one of those articles does state that Apple's usability studies found that many users couldn't figure out which button to use when.

Here's a quote by Jef Raskin, the godfather of the Mac project:

I was the 31st employee at Apple (joining in January, 1978), but I had first met Jobs and Wozniak in their garage in 1976, and told them of the wonderful work being done at PARC. Working on the Apple I at the time, they weren't interested in human factors. While I was the first PARC-savvy person at Apple, Larry Tesler was the first PARC employee to join the company. At first he was strongly opposed to the Mac's easier-to-use mouse methods, and I eventually wrote a memo that showed, point by point, that the one-button mouse could do everything that PARCs three-button mouse could do and with the same number or fewer user actions. It was faster and more efficient, and much easier to learn and remember how to use. I had observed that people (including myself) at PARC often made wrong-button errors in using the mouse, which was part of my impetus for doing better.

Unfortunately, I've yet to find a copy of said memo.


Obviously, those studies are 25 years old now, but that doesn't really reduce their validity. In fact, it possibly increases them, since it shows the "baseline human" understanding, rather than that of people who have been exposed to the stuff already*. Much as we like to think that computers are omnipresent, most of the world's population has never touched one, and a very large portion of Westerners are not really computer-literate. (As always, ask yourself: how would Mom react?)

To anyone engaging in UI discussion: I recommend you pick up a copy of Donald Norman's "the Design of Everyday Things". (Well, [url=http://www.jnd.org/books.html[anything he writes[/url] is worth reading.)

tooki

*This helps to filter out experience as a factor in perceived difficulty. Most computer users today have become accustomed to the constant interference that current UIs (esp. Windows) inject into human-computer interaction. Our "pain threshold" for usability has, unfortunately, been set quite high by these lousy interfaces.

[strictlyplaid]

Originally posted by tooki:
Most computer users today have become accustomed to the constant interference that current UIs (esp. Windows) inject into human-computer interaction. Our "pain threshold" for usability has, unfortunately, been set quite high by these lousy interfaces.

You know, for all its faults, I always thought that right-click was the one thing that Windows did right. I use XP on a regular basis, and right-click and the Taskbar have really made my computing experience more enjoyable when compared with the Action button and the Dock (the latter is just an aesthetic preference.)

But I've certainly got none of my own studies to generalize my own observations, and I have to admit that clicking a separate button to open a program would be annoying and confusing. I wonder if the same studies would have held for contextual right-click menus...

[effgee]

Hmmm ... I remain highly sceptical of that assessment. Not because I'm a fan of feature/button bloat (I most definitely am not) but because people nowadays are surrounded by interfaces (not all of them bad) that are a helluva lot more complex than the differentiation between a one-button- and a two-button mouse with a scroll wheel. Many of those interfaces (in their current form) did not exist in the 80's and thus the results of these studies (to me personally) don't have the same validity they used to have.

One example - take the evolution of an interface that nearly everyone of us deals withon a daily basis - a car. And now compare how those evolved over the past 25 years in terms of functionality, complexity and usability. Most of them are god-awful (BMW's iDrive earning the silver lemon here) and some work very well (e.g., Audi, VW) even though in comparison their complexity has increased far more than the computer interfaces we use today.

Forcing the user (out of the box) to hold down a key on the keyboard and simultaneously clicking the mouse button to access a contextual menu is not good interface design - no matter how you turn and/or try to explain it.

As far as users not knowing which button to press - there's actually a way to ease this differentiation that is so obvious that I'm completely flabbergasted that (to my knowledge) nobody has implemented it yet - I'm not going to spill my beans here since that is actually part of a little product design project of mine that I've been pondering for quite some time.

[TheJoshu]

Originally posted by tooki:
Umm, no linkage available. See if your local library (perhaps a university library) has copies of the debut issue (Jan 1984) of Macworld, and the articles about the original Mac and Lisa in 1983-84 issues of Byte magazine. I don't remember which article it was in (cumulatively, it's dozens, possibly more than a hundred, pages of text), and unfortunately, it doesn't have numbers, but at least one of those articles does state that Apple's usability studies found that many users couldn't figure out which button to use when.

In the debut issue (actually Feb 84), it says on page 30: "Apple's research showed that the one-button configuration makes it easier and less confusing for people learning to use the mouse. For more expert usage, the mouse can be used in conjunction with the keyboard. In MacPaint, for example, holding down the Option key while you drag a part of a drawing will 'stretch' the image." That's about it.

Originally posted by tooki:
But Shake is also one of those specialty programs like Maya that 99.9% of users will never hear of, much less use. For super-high-end apps like that, where pretty much all the users will be power users, requiring multibutton mice is OK.

What you should have said was, "You're right." It was an impressive and surprising find!

[tooki]

OK, February. I couldn't remember which month was the premiere issue.

There was also some other article later that year in Macworld. I forget what issue (I don't own a copy). Byte also had a ton of articles on the Lisa and Mac in 83-84.


You're right, "You're right, that IS surprising!" would have been appropriate, too!

Originally posted by strictlyplaid:
You know, for all its faults, I always thought that right-click was the one thing that Windows did right. I use XP on a regular basis, and right-click and the Taskbar have really made my computing experience more enjoyable when compared with the Action button and the Dock (the latter is just an aesthetic preference.)

I completely agree with you on these matters. Nobody should get me wrong -- I love contextual menus, and I get annoyed when an app doesn't support them. But the point is that contextual menus need to be a shortcut to commands that already exist elsewhere (their primary location being a menu-bar menu or toolbar). Contextual menus should never be the sole way of accessing a command, and that's Apple's goal in insisting that every app be operable with a single button. (There are, as others have pointed out, some apps that have all their commands accessible via contextual menu alone. This makes exploring the app almost impossible, and exploration is how most users learn GUI apps. Exploration is one of the key advantages of a GUI over a CLI.)

As for the taskbar... other than when too many windows cause the buttons to shrink too small, I agree that it is an efficient way to work. The Mac OS X Dock is, IMHO, still in need of work.

AFAIK, contextual menus (as we know them today) were invented by MS. Hierarchical submenus and key commands in menus are also MS innovations that we adopted.

Originally posted by effgee:
Forcing the user (out of the box) to hold down a key on the keyboard and simultaneously clicking the mouse button to access a contextual menu is not good interface design - no matter how you turn and/or try to explain it.

As far as users not knowing which button to press - there's actually a way to ease this differentiation that is so obvious that I'm completely flabbergasted that (to my knowledge) nobody has implemented it yet - I'm not going to spill my beans here since that is actually part of a little product design project of mine that I've been pondering for quite some time.

Indeed, forcing the user to hold a key to get to a contextual menu is a horrible contortion. That's why every app is supposed to be operable with just one button, and why (how many times do I have to say this? LOL!) no command should ever exist only in the contextual menu. Other than Maya and Shake, I can't think of a single command (excluding contextual menu plugins, of course) in Mac OS X that exists solely in the contextual menu. Invariably, a menu-bar menu or button is the primary home for the command.

Similarly, no command should ever exist only as a keyboard command. It should also exist in a static menu or toolbar.

But the whole point of mouse usage is that ideally, you make as many operations as possible command-less... for example, to move or copy a file in the Finder, or to trash one, you don't use a command at all. You use direct manipulation to drag the file where you want it to go. This, also, is one of the goals of the Mac HIG. Apple's pervasive support for drag-and-drop goes a long way towards this.

Perfect example: drag-and-drop text editing. With a system that doesn't do drag-and-drop, you have to do three major tasks to move a hunk of text: select it, cut it, and paste it. Even if you have contextual menus to save you from moving the mouse to the menu bar, you still have to do all those distinct steps. With drag and drop, it's two major steps: select the text, and drag it to its destination. No actual commands are even necessary.


As for your invention: my management profs always said that it's better to share your ideas than to hoard them, for you never know who might stroll your way and want to make your idea happen! (Just keep around verifiable documentation showing that you came up with it first, in the event of patent disputes.)

tooki

[hayesk]

Originally posted by effgee:
Forcing the user (out of the box) to hold down a key on the keyboard and simultaneously clicking the mouse button to access a contextual menu is not good interface design - no matter how you turn and/or try to explain it.

I agree - forcing the user isn't goo UI. But isn't that what we're discussing? All contextual commands can be accessed through the regular menu bar - or at least they should be. We're not forcing the user to use the contextual menu at all.

[hayesk]

argh - double post - sorry.

[effgee]

Originally posted by hayesk:
I agree - forcing the user isn't goo UI. But isn't that what we're discussing? All contextual commands can be accessed through the regular menu bar - or at least they should be. We're not forcing the user to use the contextual menu at all.

Yup, we are. Example:

There's 5 ways to delete a file on your desktop ...

1. Clicking it once, going to the "File" menu and choosing "Move to trash"
2. Dragging the file to the trash in the dock
3. Clicking the file once and hitting "Cmd-Delete" on the keyboard
4. Clicking the file once while holding down the control key and choosing "Move to trash" from the contextual menu
5. Right-clicking the file and choosing "Move to trash" from the contextual menu

Undoubtedly, number one is the least efficient way while number two is the most efficient way to get rid of a file. Problem is that with number two, you have to remember the keyboard shortcut - and it takes newbies quite some time to memorize even the most rudimentary ones (I do speak from personal experience here)

Dragging the file to the trash in the dock is probably the most intuitive way to delete it - but especially on today's larger screens (20" iMac anyone) that gets old very fast.

This leaves the context menu as the in-between solution. I have tought quite a bunch of Mac- (not necessarily computer-) newbies and, after they get tired of dragging files to the dock (which usually takes a few weeks), they begin using the context menu. They quickly ditch the menu bar command but can't quite remember the shortcut yet - so they begin exploring the "Ctrl-Click" and that is exactly where they will start complaining in no time.

(I do of course completely agree that every single command that shows up in the context menu should be accessible from the menu bar (no exclusives).)

But with the supplied one-button mouse Apple forces those "not quite newbies", "not quite power users" to contiuously complete tasks in the most inefficient manner possible.

And an interface that doesn't enable its users to complete tasks in shortest amount of time simply is not an efficient interface.

[tooki]

Yes, but you are completely missing the point: efficiency is not the goal.

The most efficient user interface is very often the command line (take, for example, the specialized command line used in airline booking). But it's got a steep, steep learning curve.

The goal of a good mass-market GUI is to be accessible: someone who doesn't know what they're doing can poke around and figure out how to do things. Static menus lend themselves perfectly to this, as does direct manipulation.

Later, as a user gains proficiency (if they gain proficiency at all -- many never do!), then they will start using more advanced methods of operation like contextual menus, and then key commands, and sometimes then a command line.


Think of it like this: the manual transmission automobile is the most efficient. You get the most power and fuel efficiency out of the engine by driving stick. But for the average joe, they don't want to learn how to shift. They want to get in the car, turn it on, and press the "make it go" pedal. Most people don't even care that it's less efficient, because to them it's a fair trade.

Regular users are like that when it comes to computers: even if there's a faster, more efficient way, they like the easy way, the one that doesn't require them to learn anything. The ideal interface for a mass-market software is one that is completely accessible to novices but also provides some allowances (like extensive key commands) for power users.

As you get into software that's for specialized markets (like that airline software), then it becomes OK to have a steeper learning curve as the price of higher efficiency.

tooki