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Subject:Usability of tabbed dialogs From:geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA Date:Fri, 30 Aug 1996 14:24:01 -0500
Jared Spool posted a fascinating summary of some studies
he's done on user confusion with tabbed dialog boxes. One
question, though: from Jared's description, the problems
seem to lie entirely with new users. It occurs to me that
like any other user-interface quirk, once you know how the
dialogs work, they no longer pose a problem, and you can
work with them effectively. For example, "power users" in
Photoshop generally seem to love the "one-stop shopping"
tabbed dialogs and consider them to be huge time savers.
So perhaps these findings don't apply once you've gotten
over the initial hump in the learning curve. Any data that
supports or contradicts my hypothesis, Jared?
--Geoff Hart @8^{)} geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Disclaimer: Speaking for myself, not FERIC.
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