Rebreather World - View Single Post - New FREE Beta Deco Software for Linux/Mac/Windows

brockbr · 18th April 2008, 22:12

Quote: (Originally Posted by breals)

Hi,

Yes, it could be a bit busy but then again, maybe you wouldn't have more than one depth/gas at a time. I usually plan square profiles for my tech dives as do my friends. I just walked my non-diver visual designer thru this cold and he came out with the same reaction.

However, my first reaction was that you had the sliders and then couldn't use them again, hence the need for an edit button. Plus, having a slider the computes the right values to build text in the correct syntax, keeps the learning curve down. IMHO I don't like making the user learn to do something if it isn't necessary, i.e. correct text syntax for entering dive profiles. Power-users might just type in the text but it took me a few times to get it right and I would put myself in the expert category for these types of things.

In the flash/dhtml calcs that we build for our site, usability showed that people wanted to be guided and having something intuitive, like a slider or radio button to make it easy. The slider interface is also intuitive for doing what if because it provides a feedback mechanism that the trains the user on when values change.

One of the interesting things we found through research is that people expect an explicit action to change something. We had a graph that calculated your tax liability for planning, but it didn't ask the user to confirm/submit the changes as the graph would just update it self as you typed. The test subjects didn't get it that it would change itself. but when we change it to a OK/Submit it changed things.

The other thing that we did was to also allow the users to type in the value that the slider would fill out if they wanted to type it in. We learned that one from Adobe, if you look at the color selector slider in Photoshop, there is a field that the slider updates but you can also just type in the value.

Please don't confuse my feedback with criticism, I'm just trying to give you feedback and have some passion around it.

Yeah, I can just imagine the iphone experience, perhaps shaking it to clear the profile like the Convert application does?

- Bill

No worries breals, your thoughtfulness in your feedback shows.

I think I'm going to prototype a few more techniques for entering data and throw them out there an gauge the response. See what shakes out.

b.

18th April 2008, 22:12	#48 (permalink)
brockbr Train Wrecked ;) Current Rebreather/s: Classic Kiss Other Rebreather/s: Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Alabaster, AL Posts: 271	Re: New FREE Beta Deco Software for Linux/Mac/Windows - Need Testers Quote: (Originally Posted by breals) Hi, Yes, it could be a bit busy but then again, maybe you wouldn't have more than one depth/gas at a time. I usually plan square profiles for my tech dives as do my friends. I just walked my non-diver visual designer thru this cold and he came out with the same reaction. However, my first reaction was that you had the sliders and then couldn't use them again, hence the need for an edit button. Plus, having a slider the computes the right values to build text in the correct syntax, keeps the learning curve down. IMHO I don't like making the user learn to do something if it isn't necessary, i.e. correct text syntax for entering dive profiles. Power-users might just type in the text but it took me a few times to get it right and I would put myself in the expert category for these types of things. In the flash/dhtml calcs that we build for our site, usability showed that people wanted to be guided and having something intuitive, like a slider or radio button to make it easy. The slider interface is also intuitive for doing what if because it provides a feedback mechanism that the trains the user on when values change. One of the interesting things we found through research is that people expect an explicit action to change something. We had a graph that calculated your tax liability for planning, but it didn't ask the user to confirm/submit the changes as the graph would just update it self as you typed. The test subjects didn't get it that it would change itself. but when we change it to a OK/Submit it changed things. The other thing that we did was to also allow the users to type in the value that the slider would fill out if they wanted to type it in. We learned that one from Adobe, if you look at the color selector slider in Photoshop, there is a field that the slider updates but you can also just type in the value. Please don't confuse my feedback with criticism, I'm just trying to give you feedback and have some passion around it. Yeah, I can just imagine the iphone experience, perhaps shaking it to clear the profile like the Convert application does? - Bill No worries breals, your thoughtfulness in your feedback shows. I think I'm going to prototype a few more techniques for entering data and throw them out there an gauge the response. See what shakes out. b.
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