Re: [LAD] User eXperience in Linux Audio

On 24.04.2015 23:40, Fons Adriaensen wrote: Yes, a classic. It's the general problem that using any toggle-action successfully requires the user to be aware of the current state. That might sound like a non-issue seen in isolation, but if a user has to deal with lots of such states over a long period of time, mistakes will happen. At the very least frustrating double and triple triggering. The reason to use one toggle button over 2 action buttons is saving space. Likewise, one shortcut over 2 shortcuts. A DAW can get away with Play/Pause toggling, but less often changed states that affect other actions are more troublesome as toggle. I mean to recall that Rhino3D has buttons that will always enable / keep enabled something on left click and will always disable / keep disabled on right click. Regarding ambiguous icons on toggle buttons that might display either state or action: If you can't avoid them, didn't find icons that imply action or state, the last line of defense is convention. Always state or always action. The blind copying of Apple's sliding switches is one of the saddest things to happen in recent GUI design. I for one can't take anyone serious who thinks this is acceptable: https://afaikblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/date-and-time.png If one wanted to infer a guideline from that screenshot, it could be: "Make sure there is a huge gap between labels and associated widgets. This slows the user down to avoid stress and gives his eyeballs a nice workout." We already know a solution since decades. Checkboxes with their identifying graphics on the left side. Taking touch into account should not mess up pointer-based use. If you can't make sure of that, maybe a hybrid is a bad idea? -- Thorsten Wilms thorwil's design for free software: http://thorwil.wordpress.com/