All geek questions in one place

Should menu items always turn on? And how do you tell the user?

One of the things that have been talked about several times in the podcast is whether menu items should always be on to prevent "WHY IT IS NOT AVAILABLE!" disappointment for the end user.

This seems like a good idea to me, but then the question arises about the lack of access (and reason) to the user. Is there anything better than just a popup with text?

As I am going to start with a fairly significant cross-platform Windows / Mac application, I thought I would throw it away to hear the wisdom of the SO crowd.

+4
source share
4 answers

One thing I've seen a printer manufacturer do with its printer properties dialog box is to have a small tooltip with a balun symbol next to the disabled items that display a tooltip when you hover over it.

Another thing you can do with disabled items is to add in parentheses why it is disabled or what the user will need to do to enable it. For example, "Save (already saved)" or "Copy (select something to copy)."

I do not like to keep it turned on, because then it will encourage users to select any menu item, fearing that they will simply receive an error message, making them feel stupid, not realizing that they cannot do it at that time.

Menu items in which spring dialogs have elipsis (...) after them so that users know about it, just don’t click and continue. Required form fields have an asterisk or a bold label to save the user from swearing with a validation error message.

+4
source

You should consider alternatives.

  • Hide menu item. This is bad. Now do you have menu items disappearing and reappearing all the time?
  • Disable menu item. Now the user can find what they are looking for, it is simply not clear how to turn it on. This is better, but still leaves the user somewhat puzzled.
  • Keep the menu item turned on, but make it display a dialog box explaining what to do when the program is in a state where the menu item cannot be used correctly.

I agree with Joel on this, # 3 seems to be the best choice.

+2
source

Joel has a post on http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/07/01.html , which may be a good place to start thinking about it.

0
source

@Bill Lizard: I would match C # 2 and # 3 - disable the item, but have a tooltip indicating why it is disabled.

0
source

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/1276386/

More articles:


All Articles