Re: Find as you type for navigation

On 7/29/06, Bailey, Bruce <Bruce.Bailey@ed.gov> wrote:
>
>
>
> > But it works well in more simple use cases, and it is certainly
>  > the most easy to understand and use for any user.
>
>  My experience is that the other method works equally well for simple use
> cases -- like application menus.
>
>  Further, I do not find the arbitrary applicability in the Windows
> environments to be easy to understand.  It is needlessly confusing.  File
> lists in Windows Explorer use
> first-letter-only-check-where-you-are-repeat-as-necessary
> whereas email lists in Outlook uses
> type-as-many-letters-as-you-like-and-jump-there.  Do you
> disagree that these UI situations are similar?
>
>  Jesper, you are a big proponent of consistency and simplicity.  I find it a
> little surprising that you are not willing to acknowledge the cognitive load
> associated with determining (or guessing) from context which
> find-as-you-type modality is in effect.
>
>  With regard to lists of links, how does the end user know a priori if the
> list will be short or not?  Should the find as you type method change
> depending on size?  A short list will be reasonable to navigate with any
> method -- since it is short!  With long lists, the simple first-letter-only
> algorithm can be virtually useless.  It seems to me than the more
> sophisticated algorithm with wider usage case would be preferable.
>
>  There is a challenging issue associated with making
> type-as-many-letters-as-you-like-and-jump-there useable for
> slow typists (be they assistive technology users or not).
>
>  I am not arguing that first-letter-only is *never* better.  I am asserting
> that, even for short or trivial lists, reasonable people can disagree about
> its inherit superiority to other methods.
>
>  I would love to see a rigorous investigation and comparison of the two
> methods.
>

There's also a problem to be had in that, while in the Windows file
system, you cannot have multiple files with the same name, but no such
restriction exists when talking about links. In fact you could have 12
click here's (even though they're already inherently bad).

Any system would also have to handle multiple links with the same name.

-- 

Orion Adrian

Received on Saturday, 29 July 2006 23:50:22 UTC