[maemo-developers] : Moving windows in Maemo

[From: Sean Luke]

Riku Voipio wrote:

> The UI should not use a dialog if it ends up hiding relevant  
> information
> below it... IMNHO current UI overuses dialogs. Just count how many  
> popup dialogs
> you need to get a http proxy set for a new wlan connection...

I think Nokia has forgotten a crucial feature of GUI design in small  
devices, which they had pioneered in phones: that the number of  
interactions (in this case, taps) should be reduced to an absolute  
minimum.

On my web page (sorry, I keep referring to it, but it's got all the  
good pictures), I've got a classic example: the awful Contacts  
application.  If I wish to view the existing data a contact, I need  
to do this:

	- Tap the filter so I can see the contact, and scroll to it
	- Tap the contact
	- Press the weird ">>" button
	- Click on "Details"
	- Examine the data
	- Click close
	- Click close AGAIN

On the Address Book application on the Mac, here's what I need to do:

	- Scroll to the contact
	- Tap the contact
	- Examine the data

No closing anything.  Likewise if I wish to EDIT the contact in  
Contacts and add an additional email address, I need to:

	- Tap the filter so I can see the contact, and scroll to it
	- Tap the contact
	- Press the weird ">>" button
	- Click on "Edit"
	- Click on "Add Field"
	- Choose Email
	- Click "OK" (bad name)
	- Fill in the new email address
	- Click close
	- Click close AGAIN

On MacOS X's Address Book, here's what I do:

	- Scroll to the contact
	- Tap the contact
	- Click "Edit"
	- Click "+" next to the existing email address
	- Fill in the new email address

I don't even need to bother clicking Edit again to turn off edit mode  
if I don't care.

The Newton is similar to the Mac here.  And on top of it, on the Mac  
and Newton I can *see* everything that's going on during this process  
because it's not being obscured by a big stack of dialog boxes.  The  
difference is that Nokia has us wending through large collections of  
modal okay/close dialog boxes when it SHOULD be using pop-up menus  
and state changing buttons (like "Edit") to reduce the complexity of  
the system.

I wish that Contacts were the only offender here.  But it's not.  The  
company needs to work much harder at flattening the user's GUI modality.

Sean