[linux-audio-dev] mouse wheel behavior and RFC: human interface guidelines

[John Check]

On Saturday 21 August 2004 02:10 pm, Pete Bessman wrote:
> At Sat, 21 Aug 2004 18:35:44 +0200,
>
> Melanie wrote:
> > Left is generally associated with up, right with down, as we read
> > left to right, top to bottom. Therefore, up MUST map to left, down
> > MUST map to right, otherwise, non-mathematically minded people get
> > uttely confused.
>
> This is perhaps the archetypal example of how a useful concept (making
> connections between the UI and the Real World) gets turned into a
> religion at the expense of that which it putatively helps and the
> profit of...
>

Indeed.

> uh...
>
> yeah.
>
> There's too much of this everywhere, but the infection seems to be
> particularly insidious in CompSci (I LOST 25 POUNDS IN TWO WEEKS WITH
> OOP) and UI design (pixels, being small, become unusable in light of
> Fitt's law; they MUST be discarded).
>
> I guarantee you that the last thing on 99.8% of users' minds when
> they're adjusting a horizontal volume slider is "This is kind of like
> reading a book, which goes left to right and top to bottom; and if we
> assume an association between beginnings and ends, then it follows
> that left and up are vaguely synonymous.  Therefore, to decrease the
> volume with my mousewheel, I MUST spin up."
>

Nope, they try one way, then the other, then make a mental note if it doesn't 
fit the expectation.


> Bah, humbug.
>
> --Pete
>
> <http://www.gazuga.net>
>
> "Nothing great was ever achieved by being realistic!" --Tom Venuto
>
> P.S. Guess what profession/hobby the remaining 0.2% have.