User interface design for programmers

I was reading this excellent article online: It made me think of REAPER. To paraphrase the author, every checkbox you see in an application represents a decision the designer failed to make. It also represents a decision the user will have to make. REAPER is very customizable. When you've been using it a while, this is a good thing. When you're just starting or just checking it out, it can be a very bad thing, especially if the defaults don't make much sense. Reading other forums, I often see criticism regarding REAPER's menus, terminology, how they are unintuitive to people coming from other DAWs. I cannot say that I totally share that criticism, although I did eventually adopt ReaMenus and wouldn't go back. I do think much of REAPER looks like it was designed by a programmer as opposed to a user-interface designer. It probably was too. What do you think?

Why not ask Justin??? db

"every checkbox you see in an application represents a decision the designer failed to make." What this really means is that the coders decided to make a decision to allow the user to opt for one. But each time the coder adds another "checkbox" option, that adds to the complexity of the code because untested combinations of the options can lead to bugs. The more options, the more likely debugging will be needed. Case in point: debugging the new MIDI code!

Oh Yeah?? Well I've been a driver for lots of years and I'm tired of having to keep on changing gears when I go up hills so I bought an automatic without checkboxes.

He obviously wasn't talking about Reaper since the article was written in 2001. People shouldn't take personal offense at it. There is some validity to some of that imo. I'll show some examples... This button doesn't say "Back" or suggest "back"... or even have a tooltip saying "Go Back". A new user wouldn't know what it does until he clicks it. Wouldn't (like he explained) an arrow pointing left suggest "Go Back"? Shouldn't the UI design hint at functions and assume not everyone is computer literate? Should a UI designer not assume that everyone will immediately understand what seems really obvious to him or her? Which is why Windows has this big left pointing button... "Go Back"... and also why the common expectation of consistency rests on the keyboard arrow keys, Up, Down, Right (navigate into, open folder), Left (close folder, backup)... Again here, an empty filter box with no label and no tooltip. A new user not reading the manual wouldn't know what it's for. Media Explorer has tons of empty space no matter where you dock it, but there's not enough room to label the fields? Is that a filter or a search box? Here, a knob with no label and no tooltip, a checkbox with neither, and the same button that means "Navigate Back" in the other screen calls up "Notes" here. You can imagine a new user looking at that knob and thinking... "I wonder what that knob does?" At the least, maybe all those things need tooltips. There's lots of little things like that in the UI.

From Justin & Co's point of view, I can see that we (as the moaning users!!!), want a hitherto default action to be modified in some way, then we have to then accept a new checkbox to change that behaviour. We have seen in some releases where the new behaviour has become the default and the checkbox used to revert to an older action! (Adding a little confusion to some, but in the main, a mild irritant). As for the ".." to go back a level ... I always assumed that this was there in preparation for the super duper UNIX version of REAPER <wince> On the subject of checkboxes, the only way to mitigate confusion/irritation etc is to try to group like actions together, sort of like how Winblows does with e.g. advanced "internet options". Then you can get an "overview" of what affects what. Inevitably, this is not always possible, and if you start to move check boxes around, you are going to get moaning users - again. Whatever they do, the developers can't win - but, hey, they will code what they like eh? db

Essential problem: Good user interfaces and tools often need to be creative, innovative. But what users are used to is what has been around. An eternal opposition is at work here.

Agree about the toolbars. I think that only (for many anyway) relates to the menu bar, the bad part, the part about nobody wanting to move it. He also made a great point about the Mac OS menu bar.