Re: Printing and background colors/images

On Feb 23, 2011, at 9:27 AM, Ian Fette (イアンフェッティ) wrote:

>> Then, you /still/ have to as a user understand what the heck it means to print backgrounds, and what exactly would be the difference. It's still quite buried and it's still IMO an unnecessary cognitive burden to place on the user.
> 
> Well if the default is to uncheck it when the author included a message to indicate it is important, then those who can't understand can just accept the author's choice.
> 
> So, in this case, there's really two options:
> 
> 1. Prompt the user with something modal-like, -or
> 2. Just do it (change the check box that the majority of users will never see).
> 
> I don't think you're proposing #1, but if you are we probably disagree :) If you're proposing #2,

Mostly. I'm saying the author indicates with some text why he thinks the user should print backgrounds, and that would trigger the UA to do something about it, and show the message in a place where the user has a choice. The UA would have a lot of leeway in how it implemented. It sounds like no implementor would go for a modal separate dialog box, which is fine if they can solve it a better way. Ideally it would be part of the normal printing flow.

> it's mostly the same as what I am proposing - "Just print the stuff the author has said is important". The question then becomes "How does the author indicate that something is important and should be printed" and "How does the user override that if s/he disagrees?".

Yeah, and "Can the author help the user make an informed decision" if the user is considering to override, and/or may be confused about the effects of the choice. 

> #1 I don't feel strongly about as I indicated earlier in the thread, and #2 I feel even less strongly about given that I am not even sure we (Chrome) would expose an option for such a small percentage of users.

You mean you would let the background print if the author said to, but there would still be an unchecked box in the UI indicating that the backgrounds won't be printed? That doesn't seem like the right thing to do. 

> I would note though that your solution doesn't give a good way for users to persistently express "I don't want to print backgrounds, period," which is likely the only group that would actually care.

Hmm. Well I supposed it would be whatever the user chose when printing from a page where the author didn't indicate anything special. But I can see how that could make the print logic a bit too un-obvious.

> It might be better to have some sort of tri-state "Default [none unless author specified], Always, Never," especially given that such options tend to be persisted across print jobs.

Maybe. That might be a little confusing too (the opaqueness of meaning for "default" to the casual user).