This came out of M$'s Usability labs and is documented in an M$ Press book on UI design (forgot title). Of course when the M$ market drones got a hold of this idea, it mutated, and M$ products now have small PGUP and PGDN buttons on the bottom of the scrollbar, which is redundant since the scrollbar already provides these functions implicitly.
Actually, it's not redundant. The 'pgup/pgdn' buttons on the scroll bar move a physical 'printed' page (in Word, goes from page 1 to page 2), while clicking in the scrollbar area moves one window's-worth (i.e. what was at the bottom of the window is now at the top, and vice-versa).
And while I could easily live with the up/down buttons grouped together, I have to admit that having them on either end makes more LOGICAL sense (even if it's not as easy). And if you're really going to be switching between them a lot, wouldn't you just use the up/down arrow keys and be done with it?:-)
As for having the scroll bar on the left... that just feels wrong. It's probably because I'm left-handed, and moving the mouse over to the left gives me a mental image of having my arm across the page (since I'm doing it with my right hand), and it just doesn't sit well. So I think having the scrollbars on the right/bottom has a lot to do with the fact that we read left-to-right, top-to-bottom, and thus the right/bottom seem "out of the way", while left/top would seem "in the way".
No, it just proves that the human being can get used to anything. The iPuck mouse *sucks* in just about every conceivable way. If you've never had trouble figuring out what way it faces, you either LOOK at the mouse a lot (oh the pain), or you tangle your fingers in the cord (oh the pain, the pain).
That mouse is carpel tunnel syndrom or RSI waiting to happen. I'm wagering in a year or so, Apple will be the target of a class action suit for all sorts of wrist and hand injuries and problems with chronic pain. Gawd knows I've only used the thing a very few times, and I already want to sue them.
The functions of the two extra 'thumb buttons' are actually configurable, and just default to 'back/forward'. I'd assume they work under Netscape as well, but I haven't tried it.
I dunno how they'd work under Linix, as I haven't tried that either. It'd be up to the driver.
Actually, I HATE the fact that the Mac has only one menu bar. I find it horribly unintuitive. I prefer to have each applciation be isolated to itself, and I strongly dislike the way the Mac menu 'invisibily' changes when different applications take hold.
And don't give me that 'infinite depth' of the screen edges... I've never had a problem hitting a menu for an application. And I usually have about a dozen app windows open at once (dev environments, console windows, email, etc).
Frankly, I think context menus out-strip the utility and intuitiveness of one global menu bar that constantly changes with no visible feedback (hey, that selection wasn't on that menu just a second ago!). Each object in the environment has its own context menu that is relavent to *it* at that specific instant. And mouse movement is MINIMAL, rather than tracking all the way to the edge of teh screen and back every time. (menu bars on each app help limit mouse movement too, but context menus are better).
See? Two sides to every issue. The Mac does NOT do it the 'one true way', by far. I remember starting up a game on the Mac that I knew how to play on Windows just fine. It started up, and then I stared at it dumbfounded. I could NOT figure out how to get the game to *start*. How was I to know that mysteriously, a "New Game" selection had been added to the "File" menu (yeah, that makes a bunch of intuitive sense). I saw the unchanged menu across the top and assumed nothing had changed. Windows certainly wins that battle on intuitiveness (at least for THAT game). Never mind the game (Warcraft II?) made excellent use of the mouse button that put any Mac user at a major disadvantage in a multi-user game...
Of the two women I've worked with in my programming career that were actually engineering developers, both were hardly very feminine (one was even lesbian).
I think 'gender' really IS the correct term.
Of course, I know lots of gay male programmers as well, but that might come from the loner/outcast camp, no? None of them are particualrly effiminate either.
Yeah... I remember working at a place that seemed overwhelmingly Straight-White-Male. Only after working there a while did I realize there were several not-so-straight people there:-) It's not always obvious.
When I'm forced to use one, I generally rest my palm on the mousepad and move the mouse with my fingers, I don't grab the whole thing in my hand with a white-knuckle grip and move my entire arm around (which I what I belive most folks think it's like).
Well, I dunno about you, but bending my wrist like that while moving my fingers is a great way to get a wrist-ache that just screams 'incipient carpel-tunnel syndrome'. Everytime I've used one, within five minutes, my hand hurts. And I've tried using it exactly as you say... and I've NEVER had wrist-trouble with other mice.
Well, I think the iMacs are flat out ugly (though the newst graphite one is probably the least so, it's still ugly, imho).
I keep thinking how 'dated' these things are going to look in a few years. Like something out of the 70's, when translucent cleap plastic was all the rage. I keep expecting these things to come with a square of purple and orange shag carpeting or a black-light poster.
The G4s are better. But I've seen some PC clones that looks as good or even better still (most are still generic ugly boxes though, I'll freely admit).
I think Apple's advertising is actually quite relavent. I don't think it's necessarly GOOD design, just DIFFERENT. (and with the puck-mouse and itty-bitty keyboard on the iMac, it's actually BAD design)
Yeah, but the small children and small women who liked it, couldn't have used it for very long.
After all, it takes very little time for the mouse to 'rotate' out of alignment, and then while you're looking at the screen and you reach over for the mouse and move it, the cursor goes in a weird diagonal direction you didn't even remotely intend. It's VERY disorienting when it happens.
They could have kept the small size and made it *slightly* oval, or put some sort of raised indentations that were specifically for feeling the orientation of the mouse (like the dots on the F/J keys or the D/K keys)... though I would prefer slightly oval so it'd be easy to feel and rotate back into appropriate alignment.
But even so, I've seen people with small hands use the MS Intelli-mice just fine and they seem to have little or no problem, and for someone with me like big hands, *I* have no problem too. It seems like making it smaller makes it only slightly better for small-handed folks, and unusable for standard/large-handed folks. How stupid a design decision is that?
Yes, but the side buttin is used (on my mouse) as the 'back button'... accuracy isn't an issue at all. Just squeeze and boom, you go back to the previous page. The other button (much harder to press) is the "forward" button (also much less frequently used).
All in all, I couldn't live without my 'back' button, now that I'm used to it. And it took me about 30 seconds to get 'used to it'.
Second off, the Puck. Many people have complained about the puck, and I frankly don't see why. The puck is designed for use in a certain position, where your palm does _not_ rest on the mouse, merely the fingers. This position is somewhat comfortable, so I really don't know why their mice (mouses?) are uncomfortable, for they are. The only fault I see is that there is only one button, but then again, the Mac OS only needs one. Okay, I've decided that you're obviously an insane person.
Don't see why people complain?!? It's PAINFUL. It's guarenteed carpel-tunnel syndrome. If anyone's hands are bigger than a 10 year old's, it's just too small. And you can't tell which way it's "facing"... I can't count the number of times I've moved it across only to have the mouse cursor move diagonally.
It's one of the stupidest, worst mouse designs I've ever witnessed. Completely UNergonomic. Barely usable. To make it 'round' means there's no simple way to tell what it's orientation is just by feel. Nothing to steady the wrist or palm... it's just an utter abomination. Apple at its worst ("form over function").
Sorry, but I love contextual menus. I love never having to go up to the menu bar except very rarely. I love directly manipulating the objects on the screen (can you say 'more object oriented'?)...
Context menus make very intuitive sense to me. I do wish they were implemented more uniformely and pervasively though.
Of course, I'm also a big proponent of everything having a keyboard short-cut (hotkey). If my hand is on the mouse, I'd like to keep it there as long as I can... and if my hands are both on the keyboard, I'd like to keep them there for as long as I can. I want to minimize the shift between mouse and keyboard as much as possible.
And let me end with one example: I'd vastly prefer to rename a file by doing a right-click "Rename", than a "click and hover for a second" (mac) or a "click... wait... click" (Windows Explorer). It's just more intuitive, and faster... I don't have to judge a 'pause', I just mindlessly do what I want, without worrying about 'accidentally' getting into (or failing to get into) differnt "modes".
Sorry, but I cannot fathom what's so hard about two buttons. It's pretty simple... the left does all the usual clicking things, the right brings up context menus to select things from. How difficult is that? It takes, what, a few minutes to learn? Maybe a few more to get proficient at? Its use and usability FAR outweighs any alleged 'difficulty' in learning it.
And frankly, these people who cannot fathom a second mouse button don't HAVE to use it at all if they don't want to (but one wonders how they feed or dress themselves if they can't handle it). But let people who want to be productive with their computer have their second mouse button. And a wheel!
(my mouse has five buttons... the one that acts as the browser 'back' button is amazingly useful, and I can't remember how I lived without it... sort of the way I felt when I first got a mouse wheel:-)
Indeed, by comparing the times of the three events and postulating that they were initiated simultaneously by a single entity, you could calculate the intertial frame of that observer.
So in other words, pretty much any two arbitrary events are simultaenous, because it's possible to find a frame of reference somewhere in the universe where those two events would seem simultaneous.
The recent discoveries universe. Can you say "quantum teleportation"? The point is that there are phenonenon now known which appear to happen instantly over distance, and the whole basis of the objection to simulataneity was the impossibility of exceeding the speedof light.
They key phrase being APPEAR to be instantly transmitted over distance. It's something that is not understood. The explaination may end up not requiring a violation of the speed-of-light speed limit. Nobody knows.
But say planet P1 is orbiting it's star at a much higher veloicty (or much slower) than planet P2 orbits its star. And say Star 1 is moving away from star 2 at a very rapid clip (there's bound to be relative motion between the stars).
The differences in speed cause time to pass at different rates between the two (one would observe time passing more slowly or more quickly on the other, if they could get an instantaneous view).
So even THAT doesn't work out unless you also state that the stars are fixed in space in relation to each other and the planets orbit at relatively the same speed (and that any realtive motion is far less than 'relativistic speeds'), thus removing the time-dilation effect.
It's must easier and mroe likely to say that it's impossible to say that two things occured 'simultaneously' on two different planets. Given the speed of light alone, it's almost a meeingless statement, but throw in relativity and it *really* breaks down.
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This came out of M$'s Usability labs and is documented in an M$ Press book on UI design (forgot title). Of course when the M$ market drones got a hold of this idea, it mutated, and M$ products now have small PGUP and PGDN buttons on the bottom of the scrollbar, which is redundant since the scrollbar already provides these functions implicitly.
:-)
Actually, it's not redundant. The 'pgup/pgdn' buttons on the scroll bar move a physical 'printed' page (in Word, goes from page 1 to page 2), while clicking in the scrollbar area moves one window's-worth (i.e. what was at the bottom of the window is now at the top, and vice-versa).
And while I could easily live with the up/down buttons grouped together, I have to admit that having them on either end makes more LOGICAL sense (even if it's not as easy). And if you're really going to be switching between them a lot, wouldn't you just use the up/down arrow keys and be done with it?
As for having the scroll bar on the left... that just feels wrong. It's probably because I'm left-handed, and moving the mouse over to the left gives me a mental image of having my arm across the page (since I'm doing it with my right hand), and it just doesn't sit well. So I think having the scrollbars on the right/bottom has a lot to do with the fact that we read left-to-right, top-to-bottom, and thus the right/bottom seem "out of the way", while left/top would seem "in the way".
- Spryguy
No, it just proves that the human being can get used to anything. The iPuck mouse *sucks* in just about every conceivable way. If you've never had trouble figuring out what way it faces, you either LOOK at the mouse a lot (oh the pain), or you tangle your fingers in the cord (oh the pain, the pain).
That mouse is carpel tunnel syndrom or RSI waiting to happen. I'm wagering in a year or so, Apple will be the target of a class action suit for all sorts of wrist and hand injuries and problems with chronic pain. Gawd knows I've only used the thing a very few times, and I already want to sue them.
- Spryguy
The functions of the two extra 'thumb buttons' are actually configurable, and just default to 'back/forward'. I'd assume they work under Netscape as well, but I haven't tried it.
I dunno how they'd work under Linix, as I haven't tried that either. It'd be up to the driver.
- Spryguy
Well yeah, but, isn't that irrelavent?
- Spryguy
Well, you'd still do clusters for fail-over even if they weren't needed for scalability.
- Spryguy
Actually, I HATE the fact that the Mac has only one menu bar. I find it horribly unintuitive. I prefer to have each applciation be isolated to itself, and I strongly dislike the way the Mac menu 'invisibily' changes when different applications take hold.
And don't give me that 'infinite depth' of the screen edges... I've never had a problem hitting a menu for an application. And I usually have about a dozen app windows open at once (dev environments, console windows, email, etc).
Frankly, I think context menus out-strip the utility and intuitiveness of one global menu bar that constantly changes with no visible feedback (hey, that selection wasn't on that menu just a second ago!). Each object in the environment has its own context menu that is relavent to *it* at that specific instant. And mouse movement is MINIMAL, rather than tracking all the way to the edge of teh screen and back every time. (menu bars on each app help limit mouse movement too, but context menus are better).
See? Two sides to every issue. The Mac does NOT do it the 'one true way', by far. I remember starting up a game on the Mac that I knew how to play on Windows just fine. It started up, and then I stared at it dumbfounded. I could NOT figure out how to get the game to *start*. How was I to know that mysteriously, a "New Game" selection had been added to the "File" menu (yeah, that makes a bunch of intuitive sense). I saw the unchanged menu across the top and assumed nothing had changed. Windows certainly wins that battle on intuitiveness (at least for THAT game). Never mind the game (Warcraft II?) made excellent use of the mouse button that put any Mac user at a major disadvantage in a multi-user game...
- Spryguy
Well, let me put things this way...
Of the two women I've worked with in my programming career that were actually engineering developers, both were hardly very feminine (one was even lesbian).
I think 'gender' really IS the correct term.
Of course, I know lots of gay male programmers as well, but that might come from the loner/outcast camp, no? None of them are particualrly effiminate either.
- Spryguy
Thank you for proving my .sig :-)
- Spryguy
Yeah... I remember working at a place that seemed overwhelmingly Straight-White-Male. Only after working there a while did I realize there were several not-so-straight people there :-) It's not always obvious.
- Spryguy
When I'm forced to use one, I generally rest my palm on the mousepad and move the mouse with my fingers, I don't grab the whole thing in my hand with a white-knuckle grip and move my entire arm around (which I what I belive most folks think it's like).
Well, I dunno about you, but bending my wrist like that while moving my fingers is a great way to get a wrist-ache that just screams 'incipient carpel-tunnel syndrome'. Everytime I've used one, within five minutes, my hand hurts. And I've tried using it exactly as you say... and I've NEVER had wrist-trouble with other mice.
- Spryguy
Well, I think the iMacs are flat out ugly (though the newst graphite one is probably the least so, it's still ugly, imho).
I keep thinking how 'dated' these things are going to look in a few years. Like something out of the 70's, when translucent cleap plastic was all the rage. I keep expecting these things to come with a square of purple and orange shag carpeting or a black-light poster.
The G4s are better. But I've seen some PC clones that looks as good or even better still (most are still generic ugly boxes though, I'll freely admit).
I think Apple's advertising is actually quite relavent. I don't think it's necessarly GOOD design, just DIFFERENT. (and with the puck-mouse and itty-bitty keyboard on the iMac, it's actually BAD design)
- Spryguy
You're right. It's only a MILLION times better. People should learn not to exaggerate so much.
- Spryguy
Yeah, but the small children and small women who liked it, couldn't have used it for very long.
After all, it takes very little time for the mouse to 'rotate' out of alignment, and then while you're looking at the screen and you reach over for the mouse and move it, the cursor goes in a weird diagonal direction you didn't even remotely intend. It's VERY disorienting when it happens.
They could have kept the small size and made it *slightly* oval, or put some sort of raised indentations that were specifically for feeling the orientation of the mouse (like the dots on the F/J keys or the D/K keys)... though I would prefer slightly oval so it'd be easy to feel and rotate back into appropriate alignment.
But even so, I've seen people with small hands use the MS Intelli-mice just fine and they seem to have little or no problem, and for someone with me like big hands, *I* have no problem too. It seems like making it smaller makes it only slightly better for small-handed folks, and unusable for standard/large-handed folks. How stupid a design decision is that?
- Spryguy
Sorry, but I love the Intellimouse Explorer.
Fits my hand great, is smooth, and that back-button is the second-most-used button on the mouse (right after left-click). It's great.
What's not to like?
- Spryguy
Yes, but the side buttin is used (on my mouse) as the 'back button'... accuracy isn't an issue at all. Just squeeze and boom, you go back to the previous page. The other button (much harder to press) is the "forward" button (also much less frequently used).
All in all, I couldn't live without my 'back' button, now that I'm used to it. And it took me about 30 seconds to get 'used to it'.
- Spryguy
How about just marketing the fact that you never have to take it apart and clean the stupid mouse ball?
That's a major win in and of itself.
- Spryguy
Second off, the Puck. Many people have complained about the puck, and I frankly don't see why. The puck is designed for use in a certain position, where your palm does _not_ rest on the mouse, merely the fingers. This position is somewhat comfortable, so I really don't know why their mice (mouses?) are uncomfortable, for they are. The only fault I see is that there is only one button, but then again, the Mac OS only needs one. Okay, I've decided that you're obviously an insane person.
Don't see why people complain?!? It's PAINFUL. It's guarenteed carpel-tunnel syndrome. If anyone's hands are bigger than a 10 year old's, it's just too small. And you can't tell which way it's "facing"... I can't count the number of times I've moved it across only to have the mouse cursor move diagonally.
It's one of the stupidest, worst mouse designs I've ever witnessed. Completely UNergonomic. Barely usable. To make it 'round' means there's no simple way to tell what it's orientation is just by feel. Nothing to steady the wrist or palm... it's just an utter abomination. Apple at its worst ("form over function").
- Spryguy
Sorry, but I love contextual menus. I love never having to go up to the menu bar except very rarely. I love directly manipulating the objects on the screen (can you say 'more object oriented'?)...
... wait ... click" (Windows Explorer). It's just more intuitive, and faster... I don't have to judge a 'pause', I just mindlessly do what I want, without worrying about 'accidentally' getting into (or failing to get into) differnt "modes".
Context menus make very intuitive sense to me. I do wish they were implemented more uniformely and pervasively though.
Of course, I'm also a big proponent of everything having a keyboard short-cut (hotkey). If my hand is on the mouse, I'd like to keep it there as long as I can... and if my hands are both on the keyboard, I'd like to keep them there for as long as I can. I want to minimize the shift between mouse and keyboard as much as possible.
And let me end with one example: I'd vastly prefer to rename a file by doing a right-click "Rename", than a "click and hover for a second" (mac) or a "click
Context menus RULE
- Spryguy
Sorry, but I cannot fathom what's so hard about two buttons. It's pretty simple... the left does all the usual clicking things, the right brings up context menus to select things from. How difficult is that? It takes, what, a few minutes to learn? Maybe a few more to get proficient at? Its use and usability FAR outweighs any alleged 'difficulty' in learning it.
:-)
And frankly, these people who cannot fathom a second mouse button don't HAVE to use it at all if they don't want to (but one wonders how they feed or dress themselves if they can't handle it). But let people who want to be productive with their computer have their second mouse button. And a wheel!
(my mouse has five buttons... the one that acts as the browser 'back' button is amazingly useful, and I can't remember how I lived without it... sort of the way I felt when I first got a mouse wheel
- Spryguy
I'ts not dead. It's pining for the fijords!
- Spryguy
Nope. It just confirmed my opinions about ignorant bigots and religious crack-pots :-)
- Spryguy
That was hilarious, and should be moderated UP! :-)
- Spryguy
Indeed, by comparing the times of the three events and postulating that they were initiated simultaneously by a single entity, you could calculate the intertial frame of that observer.
:-)
So in other words, pretty much any two arbitrary events are simultaenous, because it's possible to find a frame of reference somewhere in the universe where those two events would seem simultaneous.
There's a useful definition of simultaniety!
- Spryguy
The recent discoveries universe. Can you say "quantum teleportation"? The point is that there are phenonenon now known which appear to happen instantly over distance, and the whole basis of the objection to simulataneity was the impossibility of exceeding the speedof light.
They key phrase being APPEAR to be instantly transmitted over distance. It's something that is not understood. The explaination may end up not requiring a violation of the speed-of-light speed limit. Nobody knows.
- Spryguy
Okay, fine.
But say planet P1 is orbiting it's star at a much higher veloicty (or much slower) than planet P2 orbits its star. And say Star 1 is moving away from star 2 at a very rapid clip (there's bound to be relative motion between the stars).
The differences in speed cause time to pass at different rates between the two (one would observe time passing more slowly or more quickly on the other, if they could get an instantaneous view).
So even THAT doesn't work out unless you also state that the stars are fixed in space in relation to each other and the planets orbit at relatively the same speed (and that any realtive motion is far less than 'relativistic speeds'), thus removing the time-dilation effect.
It's must easier and mroe likely to say that it's impossible to say that two things occured 'simultaneously' on two different planets. Given the speed of light alone, it's almost a meeingless statement, but throw in relativity and it *really* breaks down.
- Spryguy