[Freeipa-devel] Should we remove the reset button?

[Adam Young]

On 10/25/2010 08:23 AM, Ben Dubrovsky wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm sympathetic to the argument that Nielsen makes about reset.
>
> One thing to consider, however, is that he's arguing from a point of view that differentiates applications from web pages -- that when people are using the web, they are in a different kind of environment from applications, and therefore, "back" is equivalent to "reset".  His argument relies on the idea that most people will easily and definitively understand the affordances of the web, vs those of an application.
>
> I'm not so sure I agree with that.  I think we're blurring the line between web site and application, and our users will be really focused on their work -- they may be conditioned to think "application" for LDAP type management, even though the delivery is in a browser.
>
> That said -- I'm OK removing the "reset" button as a device, but would still like to have the functionality to support the case where a user says, "Ah - darn.  I was looking at the wrong piece of paper, and I have to start over again quickly."
>    


Yeah.  And considering that Back for this would take you to search (most 
likely) but not to a blank form, probably doesn't equate.  I'm going to 
suggest that we spread the buttons out a bit, and get the rest out of 
the "good" area of the screen so that it doens't get hit by accident.

I've bee nreading a bit through the history of Nielsen's blog.  He has 
some interesting points.  One that I think is very interesting is his 
idea about mege menus:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/mega-dropdown-menus.html


THere seems to be a pretty good implementation for JQuery, so if we 
decided to go that way, it wouldn't be that bad.  I think that they 
would make our Nav a little bit cleaner, as we kindof make things tricky 
with the multi level tabs.

Before we made any changes like that, though, I would like to have some 
usability testing done.  Is there any way we could co-opt a few people 
for, say, 1/2 an hour and run them through doing the bascis, and get 
feedback on how easy/hard it is to use our UI?  Even if it has been done 
before, it hasn't been done with the working product, and I think it 
would be even more valuable if those of us on the UI implementation team 
could witness it, even if only virtually.

Just some ideas for post 2.0

> **My suggestion for that is to expand on Adam's line-level undo, and put a link on the screen somewhere that allows the user to "undo all" or something like that.**
>
> I do think we need a "Cancel" button still, though.  There is something far more definitive in a user clicking "Cancel" than hitting "Back".
>
>
>
> On Oct 24, 2010, at 5:45 PM, Dmitri Pal wrote:
>
>    
>> Adam Young wrote:
>>      
>>> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000416.html
>>>
>>> Since we have line level undo (which he advocates) perhaps the reset
>>> button is not worth while.  Since the user can reload the page at
>>> will, there is a built in reset button already, and there slight risk
>>> of hitting the wrong button may in fact outweigh the value of putting
>>> the feature in place.
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> Freeipa-devel at redhat.com
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>>>
>>>
>>>        
>> Good point might be worth reevaluating.
>> Ben?
>>
>> -- 
>> Thank you,
>> Dmitri Pal
>>
>> Engineering Manager IPA project,
>> Red Hat Inc.
>>
>>
>> -------------------------------
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>>      
>