GUI Guidelines - GONE!
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I have always been a stickler for well-designed GUIs. They should follow a logical flow (for English, left-to-right and top-to-bottom), labels should have colons on them, correct tab order, and things should have mnemonics to simplify keyboard navigation. And that is just the basic stuff - nothing that a quick 15 minute browse through the Microsoft Windows User Experience[^] (formerly the The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design[^]) will not teach you. What galls me is the large number of so-called "professional developers" and/or "professional applications" that completely disregard GUI design/implementation. I have even worked at places where GUI bugs are considered low priority issues(!). As a minimum, I believe developers should try to use their application without a mouse. If it is not a mouse-centric application (like a drawing application), it should be fairly usable. Anyway, I recently came across an application called "CounterSpy". I am not yet sure how well it lives up to its claims, but
damnif its GUI was not designed by an amature! A quick rundown of issues (in its agent application): o Buttons have varying sizes and scattered placement o Tab order is completely broken o No mnemonics on buttons o No "real" labels on input-capable controls (no colons on them) - and even if there were, since the tab order is broken they would likely not work correctly, anyway o No mnemonics on the kinda-sorta-almost labels that are there o ListView controls use clickable columns, but no sorting takes place o [Advanced] ListView columns are not dragable, and their sizes are not persisted and restored And that is just without actually using the functionality of the damn application! I would KILL a QA gr -
I have always been a stickler for well-designed GUIs. They should follow a logical flow (for English, left-to-right and top-to-bottom), labels should have colons on them, correct tab order, and things should have mnemonics to simplify keyboard navigation. And that is just the basic stuff - nothing that a quick 15 minute browse through the Microsoft Windows User Experience[^] (formerly the The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design[^]) will not teach you. What galls me is the large number of so-called "professional developers" and/or "professional applications" that completely disregard GUI design/implementation. I have even worked at places where GUI bugs are considered low priority issues(!). As a minimum, I believe developers should try to use their application without a mouse. If it is not a mouse-centric application (like a drawing application), it should be fairly usable. Anyway, I recently came across an application called "CounterSpy". I am not yet sure how well it lives up to its claims, but
damnif its GUI was not designed by an amature! A quick rundown of issues (in its agent application): o Buttons have varying sizes and scattered placement o Tab order is completely broken o No mnemonics on buttons o No "real" labels on input-capable controls (no colons on them) - and even if there were, since the tab order is broken they would likely not work correctly, anyway o No mnemonics on the kinda-sorta-almost labels that are there o ListView controls use clickable columns, but no sorting takes place o [Advanced] ListView columns are not dragable, and their sizes are not persisted and restored And that is just without actually using the functionality of the damn application! I would KILL a QA grThe only place where I disagree with you is about the colons at the ends of labels. That practice has been deprecated for a long time, mainly because the ':' character has localization issues.
James R. Twine wrote:
I hate Mondays...
... but Mondays hated me first --- Garfield
Software Zen:
delete this; -
The only place where I disagree with you is about the colons at the ends of labels. That practice has been deprecated for a long time, mainly because the ':' character has localization issues.
James R. Twine wrote:
I hate Mondays...
... but Mondays hated me first --- Garfield
Software Zen:
delete this;Is that an unofficial deprecation? From TWUE:
Many controls provide labels. Because labels help identify the purpose of a
control, always label a control with which you want the user to directly interact,
using the appropriate capitalization style defined for that control. If a control
does not have a label, you can provide a label using a static text field or a ToolTip
control. If you use a static text field as the label, you may need to include a
colon to make the control accessible to screen-reader utilities.That is not to say that localization is not an important issue, but just because the colon has localization issues is no excuse for not using it by default, especially if the primary language of your application is English (or a language that does not have an issue with the colon character). Besides, this kind if change is (should be) a strictly resource-only change, and it is more than trivial to remove the colon when required. (Note: the use of the word "may" in the above quoted text is not lost on me.) Peace!
-=- James
Please rate this message - let me know if I helped or not! * * *If you think it costs a lot to do it right, just wait until you find out how much it costs to do it wrong!
Avoid driving a vehicle taller than you and remember that Professional Driver on Closed Course does not mean your Dumb Ass on a Public Road!
See DeleteFXPFiles -
I have always been a stickler for well-designed GUIs. They should follow a logical flow (for English, left-to-right and top-to-bottom), labels should have colons on them, correct tab order, and things should have mnemonics to simplify keyboard navigation. And that is just the basic stuff - nothing that a quick 15 minute browse through the Microsoft Windows User Experience[^] (formerly the The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design[^]) will not teach you. What galls me is the large number of so-called "professional developers" and/or "professional applications" that completely disregard GUI design/implementation. I have even worked at places where GUI bugs are considered low priority issues(!). As a minimum, I believe developers should try to use their application without a mouse. If it is not a mouse-centric application (like a drawing application), it should be fairly usable. Anyway, I recently came across an application called "CounterSpy". I am not yet sure how well it lives up to its claims, but
damnif its GUI was not designed by an amature! A quick rundown of issues (in its agent application): o Buttons have varying sizes and scattered placement o Tab order is completely broken o No mnemonics on buttons o No "real" labels on input-capable controls (no colons on them) - and even if there were, since the tab order is broken they would likely not work correctly, anyway o No mnemonics on the kinda-sorta-almost labels that are there o ListView controls use clickable columns, but no sorting takes place o [Advanced] ListView columns are not dragable, and their sizes are not persisted and restored And that is just without actually using the functionality of the damn application! I would KILL a QA grJames R. Twine wrote:
I recently came across an application called "CounterSpy".
James R. Twine wrote:
This is someone that needs to stay as far away from an IDE as possible.
Uh oh! You've insulted the NSA and their trillion dollar spy program. A RAF team has left Edwards Air base to pick you up.;P The UI was designed deliberately to confuse hardline afghan fundamentalists while making it easy for Sylvester Stallone when he visits Afghanistan again. :rolleyes:
SG Cause is effect concealed. Effect is cause revealed.
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Is that an unofficial deprecation? From TWUE:
Many controls provide labels. Because labels help identify the purpose of a
control, always label a control with which you want the user to directly interact,
using the appropriate capitalization style defined for that control. If a control
does not have a label, you can provide a label using a static text field or a ToolTip
control. If you use a static text field as the label, you may need to include a
colon to make the control accessible to screen-reader utilities.That is not to say that localization is not an important issue, but just because the colon has localization issues is no excuse for not using it by default, especially if the primary language of your application is English (or a language that does not have an issue with the colon character). Besides, this kind if change is (should be) a strictly resource-only change, and it is more than trivial to remove the colon when required. (Note: the use of the word "may" in the above quoted text is not lost on me.) Peace!
-=- James
Please rate this message - let me know if I helped or not! * * *If you think it costs a lot to do it right, just wait until you find out how much it costs to do it wrong!
Avoid driving a vehicle taller than you and remember that Professional Driver on Closed Course does not mean your Dumb Ass on a Public Road!
See DeleteFXPFilesHmm. My mistake. I vaguely remember reading something about the ':' thing being passè, but it may have been a blog post and not an official thing at all. My applications are used for process control, where language issues are a concern (for us: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Chinese, thus far) and screen readers are not. You wouldn't have a blind person running this equipment. It's a printing press, where a paper cut could amputate an arm (not really, but we do move paper at around 17 feet per second) :rolleyes:.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
James R. Twine wrote:
I recently came across an application called "CounterSpy".
James R. Twine wrote:
This is someone that needs to stay as far away from an IDE as possible.
Uh oh! You've insulted the NSA and their trillion dollar spy program. A RAF team has left Edwards Air base to pick you up.;P The UI was designed deliberately to confuse hardline afghan fundamentalists while making it easy for Sylvester Stallone when he visits Afghanistan again. :rolleyes:
SG Cause is effect concealed. Effect is cause revealed.
SimulationofSai wrote:
[...] making it easy for Sylvester Stallone when he visits Afghanistan again.
You sure that was not supposed to be Chuck Norris? :) :laugh: ;P Peace!
-=- James
Please rate this message - let me know if I helped or not! * * *If you think it costs a lot to do it right, just wait until you find out how much it costs to do it wrong!
Avoid driving a vehicle taller than you and remember that Professional Driver on Closed Course does not mean your Dumb Ass on a Public Road!
See DeleteFXPFiles -
SimulationofSai wrote:
[...] making it easy for Sylvester Stallone when he visits Afghanistan again.
You sure that was not supposed to be Chuck Norris? :) :laugh: ;P Peace!
-=- James
Please rate this message - let me know if I helped or not! * * *If you think it costs a lot to do it right, just wait until you find out how much it costs to do it wrong!
Avoid driving a vehicle taller than you and remember that Professional Driver on Closed Course does not mean your Dumb Ass on a Public Road!
See DeleteFXPFiles:doh: I was trying really hard to recall that name, even sifted through 5 days worth of posts......:rolleyes:
SG Cause is effect concealed. Effect is cause revealed.
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SimulationofSai wrote:
[...] making it easy for Sylvester Stallone when he visits Afghanistan again.
You sure that was not supposed to be Chuck Norris? :) :laugh: ;P Peace!
-=- James
Please rate this message - let me know if I helped or not! * * *If you think it costs a lot to do it right, just wait until you find out how much it costs to do it wrong!
Avoid driving a vehicle taller than you and remember that Professional Driver on Closed Course does not mean your Dumb Ass on a Public Road!
See DeleteFXPFilesHas Chuck ever been there to roundhouse kick badguys into oblivion? One of the rambo movies involved massacring commies there.
-- You have to explain to them [VB coders] what you mean by "typed". their first response is likely to be something like, "Of course my code is typed. Do you think i magically project it onto the screen with the power of my mind?" --- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
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I have always been a stickler for well-designed GUIs. They should follow a logical flow (for English, left-to-right and top-to-bottom), labels should have colons on them, correct tab order, and things should have mnemonics to simplify keyboard navigation. And that is just the basic stuff - nothing that a quick 15 minute browse through the Microsoft Windows User Experience[^] (formerly the The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design[^]) will not teach you. What galls me is the large number of so-called "professional developers" and/or "professional applications" that completely disregard GUI design/implementation. I have even worked at places where GUI bugs are considered low priority issues(!). As a minimum, I believe developers should try to use their application without a mouse. If it is not a mouse-centric application (like a drawing application), it should be fairly usable. Anyway, I recently came across an application called "CounterSpy". I am not yet sure how well it lives up to its claims, but
damnif its GUI was not designed by an amature! A quick rundown of issues (in its agent application): o Buttons have varying sizes and scattered placement o Tab order is completely broken o No mnemonics on buttons o No "real" labels on input-capable controls (no colons on them) - and even if there were, since the tab order is broken they would likely not work correctly, anyway o No mnemonics on the kinda-sorta-almost labels that are there o ListView controls use clickable columns, but no sorting takes place o [Advanced] ListView columns are not dragable, and their sizes are not persisted and restored And that is just without actually using the functionality of the damn application! I would KILL a QA gr -
I have always been a stickler for well-designed GUIs. They should follow a logical flow (for English, left-to-right and top-to-bottom), labels should have colons on them, correct tab order, and things should have mnemonics to simplify keyboard navigation. And that is just the basic stuff - nothing that a quick 15 minute browse through the Microsoft Windows User Experience[^] (formerly the The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design[^]) will not teach you. What galls me is the large number of so-called "professional developers" and/or "professional applications" that completely disregard GUI design/implementation. I have even worked at places where GUI bugs are considered low priority issues(!). As a minimum, I believe developers should try to use their application without a mouse. If it is not a mouse-centric application (like a drawing application), it should be fairly usable. Anyway, I recently came across an application called "CounterSpy". I am not yet sure how well it lives up to its claims, but
damnif its GUI was not designed by an amature! A quick rundown of issues (in its agent application): o Buttons have varying sizes and scattered placement o Tab order is completely broken o No mnemonics on buttons o No "real" labels on input-capable controls (no colons on them) - and even if there were, since the tab order is broken they would likely not work correctly, anyway o No mnemonics on the kinda-sorta-almost labels that are there o ListView controls use clickable columns, but no sorting takes place o [Advanced] ListView columns are not dragable, and their sizes are not persisted and restored And that is just without actually using the functionality of the damn application! I would KILL a QA grJames R. Twine wrote:
I have always been a stickler for well-designed GUIs. They should follow a logical flow (for English, left-to-right and top-to-bottom), labels should have colons on them, correct tab order, and things should have mnemonics to simplify keyboard navigation...What galls me is the large number of so-called "professional developers" and/or "professional applications" that completely disregard GUI design/implementation. I have even worked at places where GUI bugs are considered low priority issues(!).
Have you and I worked together in a past life? I used to preach these same things until I was blue in the face. No one seemed to care. Sad.
"A good athlete is the result of a good and worthy opponent." - David Crow
"To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals; to have deference for others governs our manners." - Laurence Sterne
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I have always been a stickler for well-designed GUIs. They should follow a logical flow (for English, left-to-right and top-to-bottom), labels should have colons on them, correct tab order, and things should have mnemonics to simplify keyboard navigation. And that is just the basic stuff - nothing that a quick 15 minute browse through the Microsoft Windows User Experience[^] (formerly the The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design[^]) will not teach you. What galls me is the large number of so-called "professional developers" and/or "professional applications" that completely disregard GUI design/implementation. I have even worked at places where GUI bugs are considered low priority issues(!). As a minimum, I believe developers should try to use their application without a mouse. If it is not a mouse-centric application (like a drawing application), it should be fairly usable. Anyway, I recently came across an application called "CounterSpy". I am not yet sure how well it lives up to its claims, but
damnif its GUI was not designed by an amature! A quick rundown of issues (in its agent application): o Buttons have varying sizes and scattered placement o Tab order is completely broken o No mnemonics on buttons o No "real" labels on input-capable controls (no colons on them) - and even if there were, since the tab order is broken they would likely not work correctly, anyway o No mnemonics on the kinda-sorta-almost labels that are there o ListView controls use clickable columns, but no sorting takes place o [Advanced] ListView columns are not dragable, and their sizes are not persisted and restored And that is just without actually using the functionality of the damn application! I would KILL a QA grJames R. Twine wrote:
What galls me is the large number of so-called "professional developers" and/or "professional applications" that completely disregard GUI design/implementation. I have even worked at places where GUI bugs are considered low priority issues(!).
As I become more experienced with GUI development, this is something I've been paying alot more attention to. Honestly, I think what you're pointing out is an indicator not of attention to detail, but of experience. Only someone who isn't spending a great deal of time actually building the GUI is going to worry about "small details" like these.
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Ok, wait. Ok. Ok. Ok. *cough* Ok. *gasp* Is/was that a real app?!?!?!?!
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I have always been a stickler for well-designed GUIs. They should follow a logical flow (for English, left-to-right and top-to-bottom), labels should have colons on them, correct tab order, and things should have mnemonics to simplify keyboard navigation. And that is just the basic stuff - nothing that a quick 15 minute browse through the Microsoft Windows User Experience[^] (formerly the The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design[^]) will not teach you. What galls me is the large number of so-called "professional developers" and/or "professional applications" that completely disregard GUI design/implementation. I have even worked at places where GUI bugs are considered low priority issues(!). As a minimum, I believe developers should try to use their application without a mouse. If it is not a mouse-centric application (like a drawing application), it should be fairly usable. Anyway, I recently came across an application called "CounterSpy". I am not yet sure how well it lives up to its claims, but
damnif its GUI was not designed by an amature! A quick rundown of issues (in its agent application): o Buttons have varying sizes and scattered placement o Tab order is completely broken o No mnemonics on buttons o No "real" labels on input-capable controls (no colons on them) - and even if there were, since the tab order is broken they would likely not work correctly, anyway o No mnemonics on the kinda-sorta-almost labels that are there o ListView controls use clickable columns, but no sorting takes place o [Advanced] ListView columns are not dragable, and their sizes are not persisted and restored And that is just without actually using the functionality of the damn application! I would KILL a QA grJames R. Twine wrote:
"professional developers"
Or managers that only think they know better....
Why is common sense not common? Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level where they are an expert. Sometimes it takes a lot of work to be lazy The people in the lounge said I should google for the answer to a programming question but I do not know what search engine to use
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I have followed TDW for a few years now, and I DO remember that article, just by name alone! :) Peace!
-=- James
Please rate this message - let me know if I helped or not! * * *If you think it costs a lot to do it right, just wait until you find out how much it costs to do it wrong!
Avoid driving a vehicle taller than you and remember that Professional Driver on Closed Course does not mean your Dumb Ass on a Public Road!
See DeleteFXPFiles -
Hmm. My mistake. I vaguely remember reading something about the ':' thing being passè, but it may have been a blog post and not an official thing at all. My applications are used for process control, where language issues are a concern (for us: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Chinese, thus far) and screen readers are not. You wouldn't have a blind person running this equipment. It's a printing press, where a paper cut could amputate an arm (not really, but we do move paper at around 17 feet per second) :rolleyes:.
Software Zen:
delete this;Gary Wheeler wrote:
a printing press, where a paper cut could amputate an arm (not really, but we do move paper at around 17 feet per second)
I have always beleived severing a couple major arteries to be sufficient! No need to go through the bone...
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James R. Twine wrote:
What galls me is the large number of so-called "professional developers" and/or "professional applications" that completely disregard GUI design/implementation. I have even worked at places where GUI bugs are considered low priority issues(!).
As I become more experienced with GUI development, this is something I've been paying alot more attention to. Honestly, I think what you're pointing out is an indicator not of attention to detail, but of experience. Only someone who isn't spending a great deal of time actually building the GUI is going to worry about "small details" like these.
Anyone creating one of these cheesy apps should be immediatley redirected to read the book "GUI Bloopers" before being allowed to resume development efforts!
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I have always been a stickler for well-designed GUIs. They should follow a logical flow (for English, left-to-right and top-to-bottom), labels should have colons on them, correct tab order, and things should have mnemonics to simplify keyboard navigation. And that is just the basic stuff - nothing that a quick 15 minute browse through the Microsoft Windows User Experience[^] (formerly the The Windows Interface Guidelines for Software Design[^]) will not teach you. What galls me is the large number of so-called "professional developers" and/or "professional applications" that completely disregard GUI design/implementation. I have even worked at places where GUI bugs are considered low priority issues(!). As a minimum, I believe developers should try to use their application without a mouse. If it is not a mouse-centric application (like a drawing application), it should be fairly usable. Anyway, I recently came across an application called "CounterSpy". I am not yet sure how well it lives up to its claims, but
damnif its GUI was not designed by an amature! A quick rundown of issues (in its agent application): o Buttons have varying sizes and scattered placement o Tab order is completely broken o No mnemonics on buttons o No "real" labels on input-capable controls (no colons on them) - and even if there were, since the tab order is broken they would likely not work correctly, anyway o No mnemonics on the kinda-sorta-almost labels that are there o ListView controls use clickable columns, but no sorting takes place o [Advanced] ListView columns are not dragable, and their sizes are not persisted and restored And that is just without actually using the functionality of the damn application! I would KILL a QA grPoor GUI design is one thing that really irks me. At a previous job, I had a manager who created a utility for generating passowords/keys for internal use only. The thing looked like a dogs breakfast! The controls were all over the place, buttons were different sizes, completely broken tab order, resizable frame that didn't scale the controls etc. My first thought was, "Holy crap! If the outside of your program looks like that, what nightmares lie within?" He justified the terrible design by saying that it was only for internal company use, so "it's not important". Well, actually, yes it is! It doesn't take 5 seconds to ensure that buttons are the same size and aligned correctly, but now I can't take any of your code seriously, knowing that you don't even take care of the most public part of it... As another aside, I've downloaded and installed a good number of shareware utilities over the years. If they look like crap, I uninstall them without even testing to see if they do what I want. Without wishing to throw gasoline on the fire, I would say that 95% of these applications have been written in some form of Visual Basic, where it's so easy to just throw some controls on a form and run with it. Ooh, look! I can have a green background on my "OK" button, and a red background on my "Cancel" button! Kewl! Maybe I should make the OK button bigger too, since it's more important. Yeah, that's the ticket! X| Having said that, and if anyone is still reading, I am a little concerned that history is doomed to repeat itself, as soon as these people discover WPF and all design guidelines go out the window. The trend for "skinning" applications (particularly media players, for some reason), combined with the power of WPF is going to lead to a whole new level of unusable garbage. (Green ok buttons? That's so old school - I'm going to put movies on my buttons!)
Sunrise Wallpaper Project | The StartPage Randomizer | A Random Web Page
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Poor GUI design is one thing that really irks me. At a previous job, I had a manager who created a utility for generating passowords/keys for internal use only. The thing looked like a dogs breakfast! The controls were all over the place, buttons were different sizes, completely broken tab order, resizable frame that didn't scale the controls etc. My first thought was, "Holy crap! If the outside of your program looks like that, what nightmares lie within?" He justified the terrible design by saying that it was only for internal company use, so "it's not important". Well, actually, yes it is! It doesn't take 5 seconds to ensure that buttons are the same size and aligned correctly, but now I can't take any of your code seriously, knowing that you don't even take care of the most public part of it... As another aside, I've downloaded and installed a good number of shareware utilities over the years. If they look like crap, I uninstall them without even testing to see if they do what I want. Without wishing to throw gasoline on the fire, I would say that 95% of these applications have been written in some form of Visual Basic, where it's so easy to just throw some controls on a form and run with it. Ooh, look! I can have a green background on my "OK" button, and a red background on my "Cancel" button! Kewl! Maybe I should make the OK button bigger too, since it's more important. Yeah, that's the ticket! X| Having said that, and if anyone is still reading, I am a little concerned that history is doomed to repeat itself, as soon as these people discover WPF and all design guidelines go out the window. The trend for "skinning" applications (particularly media players, for some reason), combined with the power of WPF is going to lead to a whole new level of unusable garbage. (Green ok buttons? That's so old school - I'm going to put movies on my buttons!)
Sunrise Wallpaper Project | The StartPage Randomizer | A Random Web Page
Miszou wrote:
Having said that, and if anyone is still reading, I am a little concerned that history is doomed to repeat itself, as soon as these people discover WPF and all design guidelines go out the window. The trend for "skinning" applications (particularly media players, for some reason), combined with the power of WPF is going to lead to a whole new level of unusable garbage. (Green ok buttons? That's so old school - I'm going to put movies on my buttons!)
Yep. Still got the clue-by-four you used to work over web designers who thought the
blinkandmarquetags we the best things to happen to HTML sitting around in the back of your closet? Probably time to resharpen the nails on the end and add a few wraps of razor wire for good measure before WPF goes mainstream.-- You have to explain to them [VB coders] what you mean by "typed". their first response is likely to be something like, "Of course my code is typed. Do you think i magically project it onto the screen with the power of my mind?" --- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
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The most horrific part of that screenshot is the fact that someone has Celine Dion in their music collection.
Todd Smith
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The most horrific part of that screenshot is the fact that someone has Celine Dion in their music collection.
Todd Smith
I can't believe I've never noticed that before. :doh:
This blanket smells like ham