On 08.01.2011, at 06:06, Shane wrote: > My concern is that, I've got these great looking colorful icons that > can't really be seen or don't make the app look as good as it could if > the buttons were enabled. I'm thinking of putting little "light" like > indicators below the buttons that show when the simulation is ready to > run and always keeping the buttons enabled. > > Anyone had similar experiences/ideas?
The reason for disabling is that the elements that can't be used right now fade into the background, and the user can quickly scan the user interface's available options. You're doing a scientific application. Think of the context it is used in: Your users are probably mulling their study in their head, formulating phrases for the paper they'll be using this for. Using nonstandard UI that doesn't disable certain elements (= adds visual clutter and distraction) and adding yet another "availability indicator" (= more visual clutter, and more brain power required to associate the availability light with the enabled buttons) will simply distract them from their work. Your program's job is to help them get work done, and ideally faster. Your program's job is not to look good. That's not what your user paid for. Well, of course your program is supposed to look good, but not at the cost of being usable. So I recommend against it. Cheers, -- Uli Kusterer "The Witnesses of TeachText are everywhere..." http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mac-gui-dev/ _______________________________________________ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
