21 Aug
2004
21 Aug
'04
6:38 p.m.
On Sat, 2004-08-21 at 14:38, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
On Sat, Aug 21, 2004 at 06:35:44PM +0200, Melanie
wrote:
I suspect that a GUI programmer or interface designer would expect
things to increase from top to bottom. In GUI programming, the origin
is at the top left of the screen, and X,Y coorinates increase going
right and down respectively. I am not sure why they didn't just follow
the Cartesian conventions here, but I believe it has been this way
forever.
However the fact that there are people who feel strongly both ways means
this NEEDS to be configurable in a control panel somewhere. Like
'invert mouse' in any FPS game - this is the intuitive way to play for
me, like a flight simulator, pushing forward with the mouse will tilt
you forward. However there are apparently anough people who feel both
ways that every FPS has this option.
Lee
it's backwards in a "numerical"
sense, in that the numbers increase with
one slider type, but decrease with another, using the same command.
However, UI designers don't think in numbers, but associations.
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.
OK, if things 'increase' from L to R and from top to bottom,
then a vertical gain slider should have the 'off' position at
the top. For a slider controlling a frequency, the lowest
one should be at the top.
I suspect most people would find that counterintuitive,
regardless of reading directions.