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Rockbox mail archiveSubject: Re: NEWKEYS v2Re: NEWKEYS v2
From: c s <rb_dev_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 18:34:32 -0700 (PDT) --- CombThins <bmnews_at_blueyonder.co.uk> wrote: > > > > > No, we should keep the cancel function, and make > it consistent. > > For what it's worth I vote for keeping the cancel > function. To me, it is > entirely consistent with cancelling out of one menu > level to go back, and > pressing play is entirely natural to "OK" the > setting. Pressing STOP to > mean "OK" would be daft. > Not at all. As Linus correctly pointed out, on the player we started out with the big disadvantage of having only 6 buttons that aren't labeled ideally for everything that we want to do, so we have designated PLAY for the button to go forward into a menu and STOP to go backward a menu level. A lot of functions on the player are odd if you stop and think about the button labels, but we made the best out of what we were given. The fact is that while in the menu screen STOP is associated with going back one level, so there is absolutely nothing strange or "daft" about changing a setting and then pressing the key that is commonly known to take you back out of that level. Since you are through there, you go back up the menu tree. It's just common sense, since there is nothing there that says that the setting must be confirmed before you leave. The way we currently require the user to confirm a setting without indicating that confirmation is required is daft (and no I don't think that we should add that as yet another level that the user would have to respond to when changing a setting). The user knows, and more importantly has been conditioned to think that while in a menu, PLAY and STOP are forward-menu-level backward-menu-level. Breaking that association for something as insignificant and generally unneeded such as the cancel function is not good design. The point to remember is that with a limited number of buttons which may be oddly labeled for what we want to use them for, it's even more important to use them consistantly rather than changing a "back one level" key to a "cancel" key with no indication that you have done so. > Just had an idea. When on a multi-choice, lets > make MENU do the OK thing, > rather than the CANCEL thing. On normal menu areas > it already goes back a > level. That way, users like C.S. can consistently > use the MENU key to > back-up accepting changes and the rest of us can use > STOP to back-up > cancelling changes. Are there any areas where that > wouldn't work? I don't think that would be a good idea at all. If you navigate further into the menus by pressing the top edge of the round disk that activates the PLAY button, to do the opposite action (navigating backwards through the menu levels), intuition, consistency, and common sense says that you press the button on the opposite edge of the disk (STOP). Opposite functions on opposite sides of the button disk. Common sense and consistency... the main requirements of a good user interface design. ===== Craig rb_dev_at_yahoo.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com Received on 2003-08-27 Page template was last modified "Tue Sep 7 00:00:02 2021" The Rockbox Crew -- Privacy Policy |