Task Pane Usefulness
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I'm in the process of updating a project by giving it an Office XP look (menus, toolbars, etc.) The one feature that I'm still up in the air about are task panes. What are people's opinions on these creatures? (useability wise) Fiddling with Word XP, I find it kind of annoying to move the mouse to the File menu, only to have to move it back to the right side when the pane appears so I can click Open Document. I also found it confusing the first time I clicked File -> New when the Task Pane was already visible. It almost appears like nothing happens. As an end-user of a document based app, would you rather have the task pane included or not?
My 20 favorite films:
http://www.ymdb.com/user_top20_view.asp?usersid=8912 -
I'm in the process of updating a project by giving it an Office XP look (menus, toolbars, etc.) The one feature that I'm still up in the air about are task panes. What are people's opinions on these creatures? (useability wise) Fiddling with Word XP, I find it kind of annoying to move the mouse to the File menu, only to have to move it back to the right side when the pane appears so I can click Open Document. I also found it confusing the first time I clicked File -> New when the Task Pane was already visible. It almost appears like nothing happens. As an end-user of a document based app, would you rather have the task pane included or not?
My 20 favorite films:
http://www.ymdb.com/user_top20_view.asp?usersid=8912It's not that the task pane is a bad idea, it isn't. But, like a lot of thier UI designs, Microsoft's is more concerned about how the screen shots will look in the marketing material than how usable it is on a daily basis. Task panes are a great replacement for dialog boxes that would be used to operate on your app's document/content. Unlike a dialog box that obscures the content beneath it and precludes navigation within that document while its active, a task pane does neither. It lets the user see what they're operating on and navigate around it. This does require more work on your part. You'll have to worry about handling object selection changes while your task pane is active, object deletions, and potential object creation. You can mitigate this somewhat by creating a pseudo-modal state where, when certain task panes are active, most or all of the menu and toolbar commands are disabled. You'll have to determine what works best for your users.
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I'm in the process of updating a project by giving it an Office XP look (menus, toolbars, etc.) The one feature that I'm still up in the air about are task panes. What are people's opinions on these creatures? (useability wise) Fiddling with Word XP, I find it kind of annoying to move the mouse to the File menu, only to have to move it back to the right side when the pane appears so I can click Open Document. I also found it confusing the first time I clicked File -> New when the Task Pane was already visible. It almost appears like nothing happens. As an end-user of a document based app, would you rather have the task pane included or not?
My 20 favorite films:
http://www.ymdb.com/user_top20_view.asp?usersid=8912I've just used one myself in an up-coming project. The feedback from Beta testers has been a bit iffy over the Task Pane:confused: Overall the comments I've had indicate it looks nice and flashy on a monitor with lots of space But below 1024*768 it a waste of space, an irritation & they want to turn it off:(( Seems like maybe I wasted my time using it X| John Hudson Its all right - I'll tell the therapist it was all your fault, maybe they won't turn the voltage up so high on the ECT machine this time:omg: http://www.rainbow-innov.co.uk[^]
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I'm in the process of updating a project by giving it an Office XP look (menus, toolbars, etc.) The one feature that I'm still up in the air about are task panes. What are people's opinions on these creatures? (useability wise) Fiddling with Word XP, I find it kind of annoying to move the mouse to the File menu, only to have to move it back to the right side when the pane appears so I can click Open Document. I also found it confusing the first time I clicked File -> New when the Task Pane was already visible. It almost appears like nothing happens. As an end-user of a document based app, would you rather have the task pane included or not?
My 20 favorite films:
http://www.ymdb.com/user_top20_view.asp?usersid=8912Maybe if you put it in a sliding panel, like those in Visual Studio .NET. That way, it's available when needed, but out of the way otherwise. There are, of course, several classes available here on CodeProject for both .NET and VS6. Kyosa Jamie Nordmeyer - Cho Dan Portland, Oregon, USA
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It's not that the task pane is a bad idea, it isn't. But, like a lot of thier UI designs, Microsoft's is more concerned about how the screen shots will look in the marketing material than how usable it is on a daily basis. Task panes are a great replacement for dialog boxes that would be used to operate on your app's document/content. Unlike a dialog box that obscures the content beneath it and precludes navigation within that document while its active, a task pane does neither. It lets the user see what they're operating on and navigate around it. This does require more work on your part. You'll have to worry about handling object selection changes while your task pane is active, object deletions, and potential object creation. You can mitigate this somewhat by creating a pseudo-modal state where, when certain task panes are active, most or all of the menu and toolbar commands are disabled. You'll have to determine what works best for your users.
I would say don't blindly copy Microsoft. Do some research (like say, asking the folks in the Lounge ;)) about whether MS's latest whacky UI concept is actually useful and something the users like. --Mike-- "I'm working really, really fast at the moment, so a 3 minute outage becomes, due to time dilation, a 5 minute outage." -- Chris Maunder, relativistic system administrator Ericahist | Homepage | RightClick-Encrypt | 1ClickPicGrabber