SIGIA-L Mail Archives: RE: SIGIA-L: How users react to pop-up w
RE: SIGIA-L: How users react to pop-up windows
From: James Weinheimer (jamesw_at_princeton.edu)
Date: Thu Feb 08 2001 - 13:43:23 EST
Forwarded from Rebecca Davis, slightly revised.--Jim
> Danilo,
>
> Wow, that's actually a really helpful guideline - thanks so much for your
> input. The popup wizards I'm talking about are typically, for example, if a
> user is viewing their customer's contact record, and they decide to add a
> note - they'd click an "Add Note" button on the contact record, and then a
> "create note" popup window would open with the appropriate fields for
> creating a note, plus the save and c_at_ncel buttons.
>
> Given what you said, it occurs to me that the user's locus of attention
> should NOT dramatically shift between the contact record and the creation of
> the note about that contact. The contact record context shouldn't be
> eliminated.
>
> That said, it's really interesting to realize that a large part of the
> reason we instituted popups was because we thought they enabled us to KEEP
> the context (since the popup appears overlaid on the contact record), rather
> than lose it. However, even though the popup overlays the contact record,
> thus technically maintaining the context, what you said seems (at least
> empirically) to be true: the user focuses only on the popup and doesn't
> notice the overlay and the fact that they are really still in the context of
> the contact record.
>
> Thanks again for your input! I think it's a good design guideline.
> -Rebecca
>
> >From: "Danilo Medeiros" <danilo.medeiros_at_mlab.com.br>
> >To: "'christina'" <cwodtke_at_eleganthack.com>, <tmaynard_at_Lycos-inc.com>,
> > "'Rebecca Davis'" <rebeccalynnedavis_at_hotmail.com>
> >CC: <sigia-l-digest_at_asis.slis.indiana.edu>
> >Subject: RE: SIGIA-L: How users react to pop-up windows
> >Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 09:53:28 -0200
> >
> >Hello everybody,
> >this is my first message, keep up the great discussion!
> >
> >I was wondering that some Cognitive Psicology (I´m not an expert, so let me
> >apologize in advance :-) could help us understand what happens with pop up
> >windows...
> >
> >CP says that humans can only focus one thing at a time. We can do many
> >things at once, but our LOCUS (this is how they call the subject of our
> >attention) is always a single thing. When the system performs an action
> >like
> >opening a popup window automatically, our Locus of attention is changed
> >violently... can you imagine if this kind of thing happened when we were
> >driving or shaving??? :-)))
> >
> >So this is my point: pop up windows should not alter the Locus of attention
> >of the user without an "informational" reason. I love popups when they tell
> >me "hey you moron, you are going to erase all your data. Are you really
> >THIS
> >dumb? [YES] [NO]"
> >
> >Better yet, popups of this particular kind should make your choice even
> >more
> >difficult and unrepetitive. For example: "you´ve asked to wipe out the
> >contents of the company´s server. You should know that by doing this YOU
> >MAY
> >LOSE YOUR JOB. If you really want to do this, please type the fourth word
> >of
> >this message, backwards"...
> >
> >Thanks to Jef Raskin and his book "The humane interface" for this insight.
> >
> >My 2 cents...
> >
> >[]s
> >
> >Danilo Medeiros
> >Neoris MLab - Information Architect
> >danilo.medeiros_at_mlab.com.br
> >(21) 535-5952 r 1250
> >Rio de Janeiro . São Paulo . Brasília
> >www.mlab.com.br
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