24 Aug
2009
24 Aug
'09
7:54 p.m.
Guillaume Lerouge wrote:
Hi,
On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 7:22 PM, Ecaterina Valica <valicac(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I think I've seen some minimal wizards, with only the usable buttons in.
We should make a standard and follow it on other
aspects too.
The same discussion is for the pagination: do you show the prev link? yes
you do, and it's disabled. But the user know that a Prev action can be done
and he knows it's possition.
The same aspect is for menus too - if I don't have Edit rights - should I
see the edit link?
These remarks are very correct:
I'm really afraid of C) -> buttons appearing and disappearing for no
specific reason (from the user point of view). A button that was there is no
longer there -> how comes?
Plus the standard practice in all wizards we've looked at with Caty was to
have all buttons displayed all the time... I guess if hiding buttons from
one part of the form to the next was a good practice we would have found a
UX blog talking about it by now (we didn't). Actually, Marius suggested that we keep the
"invalid" buttons hidden (but
without changing the positions of the displayed buttons), for the
following
reasons:
1/ the interface should be as light as possible, we shouldn't crowd the
interface with buttons that the user can never push
2/ disabled buttons can be a little confusing, the user wouldn't know if
there
is something he needs to do to enable those buttons.
But if you have the icons/links/buttons disabled:
A. the users knows the possible actions are there and doesn't need to still
look for them in the interface;
B. when the finishing / editing step will occur and will be possible, the
user will know where to look for it, because he seen it before.
C. the buttons don't disappear and appear like crazy. This is good also for
the designer - he can align the controls and the other sibling elements
don't blink from left to right.
So I'm afraid we're going against a standard and re-inventing new stuff just
for the sake of it, with no proven value at the end of the line. People are
not (yet) accustomed to form buttons magically appearing and I don't want
our project managers to be the ones who will have to explain our users that
"yes, our developers liked hide-and-seek buttons best so that's what we
implemented" ;-)
It's not magically or chaotically, it's matching what the user can do: you have
only a button therefore the only thing you can click and could ever click is
that button, I think it makes it simple.
Now the *only* good reason I find for showing disabled buttons is to actually
make it obvious for the user that it's a process in multiple steps (it's a
wizard, everybody knows Previous and Next means wizard), not make him believe
that clicking the only visible button in the first form will get the job done
and then have the surprise of another step appearing and so on. Make it clear
from the very beginning what is he doing there (you have multiple steps to take,
at one point you'll be able to "Insert X", you do have a previous button and
will be able to return at this step if you mess up something).
Thanks,
Anca
Guillaume
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