tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Dec 30 17:15:41 2003

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Re: Klingon UI Questions (off-topic)

...Paul ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003, Alan Anderson wrote:
> ja' "...Paul" <[email protected]>:
> >The File menu always refers to actions to be taken on the current, open
> >file.
>
> lughchu'be' ngoDqoqvam.  tlhochbej "New".  pIj pa' "Preferences" "Settings"
> joq tu'lu' je.

Are you talking about a top-level "New" menu option?  Or are you saying
that File->New doesn't match the object->verb pattern?

There are a few things to consider.  One, Windows UIs have gotten
progressively worse since they were first introduced.  Particularly
Windows Explorer.

However, if you take a look at the "ubiquitous" menu items, you'll notice
they do follow the pattern.  File, Edit, View.  Windows Explorer has added
"Favorites" and "Tools" that do not follow the model, but those are
new-ish menu items, and have only been commonplace in the last few years.
Bring up something that hasn't changed much, such as Notepad, and you'll
find the theme runs strong.  Look at Calculator.

The other thing interesting is note that, in the menus that DON'T have a
verb root, the menu options tend to be much more verbose.  Microsoft Paint
has a menu item "Colors" and yet the only menu option beneath it is "Edit
Colors".  Explorer's "Favorites" menu reuses the word "Favorites" in each
of the two menu options.

The problem is in the fact that there are two kinds of things to represent
in a UI, and they have contrary models.  The first is that you want to
represent actions to the user; the Verb->Object model is the best way to
do do this, and in the early days, this was the majority of what needed to
be conveyed (with the exception of "File").  The second thing to represent
is data, and this is best represented as a logical grouping (the Explorer
"Favorites" is an example of this).  The end result is an inconsistent
amalgam of different UI models, but this has become acceptable because
almost everyone has become computer savvy enough to know how to use the
Microsoft Windows UI model.

...Paul

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