- From: Joseph Scheuhammer <clown@utoronto.ca>
- Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:43:05 -0500
- To: David Bolter <david.bolter@utoronto.ca>
- CC: Aaron M Leventhal <aleventh@us.ibm.com>, Becky Gibson <Becky_Gibson@notesdev.ibm.com>, Jon Gunderson <jongund@uiuc.edu>, "Schnabel, Stefan" <stefan.schnabel@sap.com>, Thomas.Wlodkowski@corp.aol.com, wai-xtech@w3.org, wai-xtech-request@w3.org
David Bolter wrote:
> I see, so "haspopup" would be a kind of a catch all. I suspect for
> tabs, users might habituate that haspopup probably means closeable 99%
> of the time and they could try the keystroke.
Some random thoughts:
It's interesting that (a) both the visual and eyes-free user can acquire
a context menu here, but (b) only the visual user is given, up front, a
visual cue of the popular 'close-the-tab' operation. That implies that
there should be a analogous up-front audio cue. Perhaps it's part of
the title of the tab -- whenever the title is presented/spoken, so is
the cue 'closable'. Perhaps a standardized sound effect would suffice.
This is similar to Stephan's suggestion that closability is part of the
tool tip. I suggest that when focus is placed on the tab and its name
is announced, it is also announced that it can be closed (if it can be).
Another factor: doesn't it depend on how the tab was created? If the
user created the tab by some previous UI gestture, then, by symmetry,
they should be able to close it. But, on the other hand, if the tabs
are within a dialog that the system is presenting, then users do not
expect that those tabs can be closed. In short, the context of the
situation and mind set of the user comes into play -- do they expect
that a given tab is closable?
Finally, putting on my Fluid hat: are there any user experience studies
to go by regarding putting the close icon in the tab-focus order? If
90% of the users want the close box to be in the tab order, then it
should be in the tab order. If only 10% want that, then it is likely a
hindrance to put it in the tab order. And, finally, if a significant
but less than a majority of users want it in the tab order, perhaps it's
a user preference -- the user interface (here tab order) is adapted
according to that preference. Only those users who want it in the tab
order get it that way.
--
;;;;joseph
'This is not war -- this is pest control!'
- "Doomsday", Dalek Leader -
Received on Tuesday, 4 March 2008 15:44:59 UTC