On 24.04.2015 23:40, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
Consider a button that toggles between 'stop' and 'play'. Does
it show the current state of the player, or the one you get
when you click on it ?
Yes, a classic. It's the general problem that using any toggle-action
successfully requires the user to be aware of the current state. That
might sound like a non-issue seen in isolation, but if a user has to
deal with lots of such states over a long period of time, mistakes will
happen. At the very least frustrating double and triple triggering.
The reason to use one toggle button over 2 action buttons is saving
space. Likewise, one shortcut over 2 shortcuts. A DAW can get away with
Play/Pause toggling, but less often changed states that affect other
actions are more troublesome as toggle.
I mean to recall that Rhino3D has buttons that will always enable / keep
enabled something on left click and will always disable / keep disabled
on right click.
Regarding ambiguous icons on toggle buttons that might display either
state or action: If you can't avoid them, didn't find icons that imply
action or state, the last line of defense is convention. Always state or
always action.
Similar situation with 'slider switches'
which show 'on' or 'off' on the flat part. If you have no other
feedback, the state of the button or slider gives you a very
ambiguous hint at best.
The blind copying of Apple's sliding switches is one of the saddest
things to happen in recent GUI design.
I for one can't take anyone serious who thinks this is acceptable:
https://afaikblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/date-and-time.png
If one wanted to infer a guideline from that screenshot, it could be:
"Make sure there is a huge gap between labels and associated widgets.
This slows the user down to avoid stress and gives his eyeballs a nice
workout." We already know a solution since decades. Checkboxes with
their identifying graphics on the left side. Taking touch into account
should not mess up pointer-based use. If you can't make sure of that,
maybe a hybrid is a bad idea?
--
Thorsten Wilms
thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/
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