X Marks The Spot (Another UI Question)
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I'm working on a "template" for future projects. I'm trying to standardize a look and feel. My project shows various work screens in a tabbed layout. The bottom right hand corner of each tab has the familar OK, Apply, Close buttons. My question is about putting an 'X' on each tab (See Visual Studio 2010) that acts as a secondary close button. It occured to me that the desire to have that 'X' there might be due to my work in Visual Studio 2010. Maybe that 'X' is a nice fit for a development enviornment but perhaps it isn't such a good idea for casual users. I'm kind of surprised what freaks users out at times. Maybe the 'X' in addition to the other buttons will be confusing. On the other hand, I like the convenience. Thoughts?
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I'm working on a "template" for future projects. I'm trying to standardize a look and feel. My project shows various work screens in a tabbed layout. The bottom right hand corner of each tab has the familar OK, Apply, Close buttons. My question is about putting an 'X' on each tab (See Visual Studio 2010) that acts as a secondary close button. It occured to me that the desire to have that 'X' there might be due to my work in Visual Studio 2010. Maybe that 'X' is a nice fit for a development enviornment but perhaps it isn't such a good idea for casual users. I'm kind of surprised what freaks users out at times. Maybe the 'X' in addition to the other buttons will be confusing. On the other hand, I like the convenience. Thoughts?
With most things GUI I tend to find that you can never second guess the users. I always use the VS X to close individual tabs - and miss them in SQL Mgt studio - but that's through lots of use closing tabs many times a day. In your app, if users are likely to be closing tabs frequently then I would say that the X is a good idea - but until you monitor usage, you'll never be quite sure - and even then it may be they are not used through ignorance rather than anything else. If you are working on a template (and you have the time!) my advice would be to make the presence of things like this optional (even on a user-by-user basis) and turn it ON by default - if anyone complains it is easy to remove them by setting some option. You can also build in monitoring - count up how often different methods are used to activate actions; I did this in a prototype some years ago and was astonished to find how few users used some of the nifty things we'd put into the application. It transpired that mostly it was because they didn't know about (or couldn't remember) the other options so stucj with what they were familiar with (which was mainly using the menus)
MVVM# - See how I did MVVM my way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
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I'm working on a "template" for future projects. I'm trying to standardize a look and feel. My project shows various work screens in a tabbed layout. The bottom right hand corner of each tab has the familar OK, Apply, Close buttons. My question is about putting an 'X' on each tab (See Visual Studio 2010) that acts as a secondary close button. It occured to me that the desire to have that 'X' there might be due to my work in Visual Studio 2010. Maybe that 'X' is a nice fit for a development enviornment but perhaps it isn't such a good idea for casual users. I'm kind of surprised what freaks users out at times. Maybe the 'X' in addition to the other buttons will be confusing. On the other hand, I like the convenience. Thoughts?
Most users are familiar with the X to close... I would leave it there. I've had clients asking for it to be put back when I removed it :)
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I'm working on a "template" for future projects. I'm trying to standardize a look and feel. My project shows various work screens in a tabbed layout. The bottom right hand corner of each tab has the familar OK, Apply, Close buttons. My question is about putting an 'X' on each tab (See Visual Studio 2010) that acts as a secondary close button. It occured to me that the desire to have that 'X' there might be due to my work in Visual Studio 2010. Maybe that 'X' is a nice fit for a development enviornment but perhaps it isn't such a good idea for casual users. I'm kind of surprised what freaks users out at times. Maybe the 'X' in addition to the other buttons will be confusing. On the other hand, I like the convenience. Thoughts?
Typical users are probably most familiar with tabs in the context of web browsers - in this case as most of the popular browsers do it then that's a good indicator that you should do so too!
My Blog: www.dwmkerr.com My Charity: Children's Homes Nepal
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With most things GUI I tend to find that you can never second guess the users. I always use the VS X to close individual tabs - and miss them in SQL Mgt studio - but that's through lots of use closing tabs many times a day. In your app, if users are likely to be closing tabs frequently then I would say that the X is a good idea - but until you monitor usage, you'll never be quite sure - and even then it may be they are not used through ignorance rather than anything else. If you are working on a template (and you have the time!) my advice would be to make the presence of things like this optional (even on a user-by-user basis) and turn it ON by default - if anyone complains it is easy to remove them by setting some option. You can also build in monitoring - count up how often different methods are used to activate actions; I did this in a prototype some years ago and was astonished to find how few users used some of the nifty things we'd put into the application. It transpired that mostly it was because they didn't know about (or couldn't remember) the other options so stucj with what they were familiar with (which was mainly using the menus)
MVVM# - See how I did MVVM my way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
_Maxxx_ wrote:
. I always use the VS X to close individual tabs
I don't - I always use mouse Middle Button Click to close tabs - works in VS, SSMS, Chrome, PsPad, ...
Ideological Purity is no substitute for being able to stick your thumb down a pipe to stop the water
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Typical users are probably most familiar with tabs in the context of web browsers - in this case as most of the popular browsers do it then that's a good indicator that you should do so too!
My Blog: www.dwmkerr.com My Charity: Children's Homes Nepal
:thumbsup:
"the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "It is the celestial scrotum of good luck!" - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "But you probably have the smoothest scrotum of any grown man" - Pete O'Hanlon (2012) -
With most things GUI I tend to find that you can never second guess the users. I always use the VS X to close individual tabs - and miss them in SQL Mgt studio - but that's through lots of use closing tabs many times a day. In your app, if users are likely to be closing tabs frequently then I would say that the X is a good idea - but until you monitor usage, you'll never be quite sure - and even then it may be they are not used through ignorance rather than anything else. If you are working on a template (and you have the time!) my advice would be to make the presence of things like this optional (even on a user-by-user basis) and turn it ON by default - if anyone complains it is easy to remove them by setting some option. You can also build in monitoring - count up how often different methods are used to activate actions; I did this in a prototype some years ago and was astonished to find how few users used some of the nifty things we'd put into the application. It transpired that mostly it was because they didn't know about (or couldn't remember) the other options so stucj with what they were familiar with (which was mainly using the menus)
MVVM# - See how I did MVVM my way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
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_Maxxx_ wrote:
. I always use the VS X to close individual tabs
I don't - I always use mouse Middle Button Click to close tabs - works in VS, SSMS, Chrome, PsPad, ...
Ideological Purity is no substitute for being able to stick your thumb down a pipe to stop the water
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See- here's me, a user, who is not using a productive option through ignorance. thanks!
MVVM# - See how I did MVVM my way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')
That's the problem with Windows - there are so many different ways to do anything. If you don't implement the one way the user found... :sigh:
Ideological Purity is no substitute for being able to stick your thumb down a pipe to stop the water
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I'm working on a "template" for future projects. I'm trying to standardize a look and feel. My project shows various work screens in a tabbed layout. The bottom right hand corner of each tab has the familar OK, Apply, Close buttons. My question is about putting an 'X' on each tab (See Visual Studio 2010) that acts as a secondary close button. It occured to me that the desire to have that 'X' there might be due to my work in Visual Studio 2010. Maybe that 'X' is a nice fit for a development enviornment but perhaps it isn't such a good idea for casual users. I'm kind of surprised what freaks users out at times. Maybe the 'X' in addition to the other buttons will be confusing. On the other hand, I like the convenience. Thoughts?
I templated my tabs to include the close 'X'. For MS to design any tabs anywhere with this as an option is just plain stupid.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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I'm working on a "template" for future projects. I'm trying to standardize a look and feel. My project shows various work screens in a tabbed layout. The bottom right hand corner of each tab has the familar OK, Apply, Close buttons. My question is about putting an 'X' on each tab (See Visual Studio 2010) that acts as a secondary close button. It occured to me that the desire to have that 'X' there might be due to my work in Visual Studio 2010. Maybe that 'X' is a nice fit for a development enviornment but perhaps it isn't such a good idea for casual users. I'm kind of surprised what freaks users out at times. Maybe the 'X' in addition to the other buttons will be confusing. On the other hand, I like the convenience. Thoughts?
I've applied the X to pretty much every tab that we've ever created as top level containers and never once heard that the users have found it confusing.
*pre-emptive celebratory nipple tassle jiggle* - Sean Ewington
"Mind bleach! Send me mind bleach!" - Nagy Vilmos
CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier
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I templated my tabs to include the close 'X'. For MS to design any tabs anywhere with this as an option is just plain stupid.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
How is making something an option stupid? Granted it might be better to default that option to on, but that hardly makes defaulting it to off stupid.
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How is making something an option stupid? Granted it might be better to default that option to on, but that hardly makes defaulting it to off stupid.
What I meant was, for MS to NOT make the close 'X' on tabs an option is stupid. Sorry
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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I'm working on a "template" for future projects. I'm trying to standardize a look and feel. My project shows various work screens in a tabbed layout. The bottom right hand corner of each tab has the familar OK, Apply, Close buttons. My question is about putting an 'X' on each tab (See Visual Studio 2010) that acts as a secondary close button. It occured to me that the desire to have that 'X' there might be due to my work in Visual Studio 2010. Maybe that 'X' is a nice fit for a development enviornment but perhaps it isn't such a good idea for casual users. I'm kind of surprised what freaks users out at times. Maybe the 'X' in addition to the other buttons will be confusing. On the other hand, I like the convenience. Thoughts?
As with other replies, I favour the 'x' in the tab itself. I would also strongly oppose putting OK/Accept/Apply/Close/etc. buttons at the bottom right corner of (i.e. inside) tab pages (which is what it sounds like you're currently doing). My objection to the use of those buttons (anywhere) inside a tab page is that buttons of that nature (which are commonly at the bottom right) customarily relate to dismissing an entire form or dialog ... and a tab page is emphatically not the whole form. As programmers we're used to overloading methods; our users, however, have a great capacity for getting confused (does 'apply' apply to just the tab or the whole tab set?, etc.). Having a cluster of OK/etc. buttons outside the (outer-most nested :~ ) tab control is fine - because it clearly applies to the whole form and so is consistent with other places where people will see such buttons. Now that I think a little deeper, however... I think of browsers, Notepad++, etc. (i.e. other apps that use tabs to effectively contain distinct and independent documents (literal or otherwise)) - where the user's understanding of "what's in the tab" may mean that OK/etc. buttons within the tab are less confusing. I still don't like the idea, however. But that, perhaps, is just personal taste. Yet more attempts to understand how I relate to OK/etc. buttons... (For me) they are buttons that belong in, and are used to control, dialogs - not documents. And tabs are either means of grouping parts of a common document or of presenting distinct and independent documents. Either way, however, they are not dialogs. Hope something in the above helps. Chris
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I'm working on a "template" for future projects. I'm trying to standardize a look and feel. My project shows various work screens in a tabbed layout. The bottom right hand corner of each tab has the familar OK, Apply, Close buttons. My question is about putting an 'X' on each tab (See Visual Studio 2010) that acts as a secondary close button. It occured to me that the desire to have that 'X' there might be due to my work in Visual Studio 2010. Maybe that 'X' is a nice fit for a development enviornment but perhaps it isn't such a good idea for casual users. I'm kind of surprised what freaks users out at times. Maybe the 'X' in addition to the other buttons will be confusing. On the other hand, I like the convenience. Thoughts?
As a veteran member of the Apple (Computer, Inc.) Human Interface Group* team, permit me to provide some insights: Safari displays the "x" box when you hover over tab N+1; e.g., "x" shows when a) there is more than 1 tab and b) the mouse is hovering over the tab, regardless if the tab is the "active" tab. No "x" is shown when only a single tab is present. IE8 requires you to activate the tab to then see the "x".' Firefox 6 ~ 10 shows the "x" only when the tab is active, and not on the 1st tab if only a single tab is open. Firefox 12 shows the "x" on all tabs except if there is only one tab open; that single tab doesn't show the "x". Google Chrome has a permanent "x" on each tab, regardless if there is 1 or more tabs. The short: Do as da Google does ... show the "x" on every tab, all the time. FireFox, Safari & IE are stupid because, when there is only a single tab, the user is "looking" for the "x" but it ain't there. "What?! I gotta move the cursor *clear* to the upper-left of my 1900 pixel-wide-screen monitor to click *that* 'X' just to close the tab/window?" Also, don't cause the end-user to have to hold down CTL+Y+LeftElbow+StandLikeABalarinaWithRightArmNorthwest+MiddleRightToeOnSpaceBar to get to a common feature. Also, if some action needs the user's attention for that tab prior to closing the tab, bring the tab forward, refresh if needed, and present the user with a dialog or whatever. *OK, so big deal I started with Apple's Human Interface Group (HIG) on a Wednesday and I was only their "copy-boy" and had to make 10 copies of this 300-page duplexed user manual (on a damned slow behemoth Xerox copier) for some program that they (Apple) internally code named "WildCard" which was then released as "HyperCard" and, while bored in the copy room copying this manual, I decided to it and subsequently learned all about Wild/HyperCard along with literally "living" at Apple that following weekend of having just started working there that previous Wednesday and, during that weekend, solved several of their top HyperCard programming challenges by the following Monday and was then promoted to Jr. Engineer, of which they then needed to hire another "copy boy," and I really didn't actually contribute anything directly to the User Interface of all things Apple ... I was *still* a member of the HIG team!!! (yes, a true story...) {Did I also mention that when I was a teenager I was running through the MGM Grand in Reno, NV, in March, 1983, and plowed down Sammy Davis, Jr., who was then hospita
