Liking the design? [LWN.net]

Liking the design?

Posted Mar 1, 2010 17:48 UTC (Mon) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784)
In reply to: "Task Pooper" FTW by hadess
Parent article: "Task Pooper" could revolutionize GNOME desktop (ars technica)

Where to begin with the design and rationale? There's the usual belated response to something people probably told the developers hundreds of times, only to be met with condescension:

In the design document, there is a reference to research conducted at PARC which found that many people use their e-mail inbox as an ad-hoc to-do list.

I remember a lecturer at university (in the mid-1990s) telling everyone that this was his primary means of task management. The research is likely to go back in time significantly further than that.

Then we have the nudging forward of the "state of the art" through the "usability fetish du jour", which is gestures and multitouch:

Their solution is to use mouse "velocity" to determine when the panel is wanted. The panel will pop up when you throw the cursor at the screen edge with a little bit of momentum, but it won't appear when you merely have your cursor positioned on the edge.

This is possibly great stuff for people who are well practised with the mouse/touchpad, but will just alienate and frustrate everyone else. Expect the usability police to insist that they know best and that everyone else is "not qualified" to comment.

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