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0 pointsubernostrum12y ago0 comments

"Advanced settings" dialogs tend to indicate poorly-thought-out interface design.

Rather than demonstrating careful attention to what features are useful and important enough to ship, they become dumping grounds for "something someone asked for once".

0 comments

nightski12y ago

So well thought out interface design is ignoring subsets of users and unifying everyone to one common set of behavior.

Imagine if Excel employed this philosophy. It wouldn't be useful to anyone.

tracker112y ago

I wasn't aware I could set a field to SUM(..) etc from the gui... Most of the features in Excel are a bit under the covers.. and far more so than about:config... maybe the "advanced settings" tab should be a button that just takes you to about:config with a warning?

hysan12y ago

Err... I just opened up Excel (2002 since that is all I have at work), selected a cell, clicked on the SUM button (sure it uses the mathematical symbol for sum but if you hover over it, it says SUM), and then was able to click and drag (or CRTL + click for nonconsecutive cells) to select cells for the sum. This is all via the GUI. I'm not sure how this is hidden. Heck, I did this in a Japanese version of Office which I can't read.

Is this different in Office 2010 or any of the newer versions of Office? I mostly use LibreOffice and even there it has the same "all GUI" functionality.

1 more reply

zimpenfish12y ago

That depends how large the subset is. If it's 2% or lower, then yes. Hell, I might even go as high as 10% depending on what the particular bit of behaviour is.

roel_v12y ago

Do you think 2% of Excel users (or 10%) use Pivot tables? Do you think Excel would be the massively powerful tool it is today without that?

Same for scatter plot, import csv files delimited with % marks, and the ipmt() function?

1 more reply

piyush_soni12y ago

What makes you say "Advanced settings" dialogs mean poorly thought out UI? I think it's a very good way to tell novice users, "don't open this panel if you don't know what you are doing". And if they still do it and something wrong happens, they'd immediately know the reason.

marshray12y ago

User has trouble with software. User says that software is "too hard to use". A usability/interaction team are tasked with making the software "easier to use" and set off to find "confusing and infrequently used" features they can kill off.

Obviously anything on the 'Advanced...' dialog makes an easy target.

piyush_soni12y ago

Humm .... I don't believe that just the presence of an "Advanced" button somewhere in the settings makes a software hard to use. May be FF usability experts do. :)

vidarh12y ago

There's very few applications I'd consider useful to me if stripped of the options that "most users" would never want to touch.

Gormo12y ago

> they become dumping grounds for "something someone asked for once".

Right. That's what they should be.

Software exists to provide utility for users, not to instantiate designers' aesthetic visions.

dewiz12y ago

I'm pretty sure that Disable Javascript is not something asked ONCE.

jobigoud12y ago

At the moment of this writing, the NoScript extension is the 6th most popular extension.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/extensions/?sort=us...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

nightski12y ago

So well thought out interface design is ignoring subsets of users and unifying everyone to one common set of behavior.

Imagine if Excel employed this philosophy. It wouldn't be useful to anyone.

tracker112y ago

hysan12y ago

Is this different in Office 2010 or any of the newer versions of Office? I mostly use LibreOffice and even there it has the same "all GUI" functionality.

1 more reply

zimpenfish12y ago

That depends how large the subset is. If it's 2% or lower, then yes. Hell, I might even go as high as 10% depending on what the particular bit of behaviour is.

roel_v12y ago

Do you think 2% of Excel users (or 10%) use Pivot tables? Do you think Excel would be the massively powerful tool it is today without that?

Same for scatter plot, import csv files delimited with % marks, and the ipmt() function?

1 more reply

piyush_soni12y ago

marshray12y ago

Obviously anything on the 'Advanced...' dialog makes an easy target.

piyush_soni12y ago

Humm .... I don't believe that just the presence of an "Advanced" button somewhere in the settings makes a software hard to use. May be FF usability experts do. :)

vidarh12y ago

There's very few applications I'd consider useful to me if stripped of the options that "most users" would never want to touch.

Gormo12y ago

> they become dumping grounds for "something someone asked for once".

Right. That's what they should be.

Software exists to provide utility for users, not to instantiate designers' aesthetic visions.

dewiz12y ago

I'm pretty sure that Disable Javascript is not something asked ONCE.

jobigoud12y ago

At the moment of this writing, the NoScript extension is the 6th most popular extension.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/extensions/?sort=us...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse