“Modes cause problems because they make habitual actions have unexpected effects”—interesting lens from Raskin’s The Humane Interface
Conversation
Replying to
e.g. compare caps lock & shift; former changes behavior of later habitual keypresses; latter creates a mode but affects no habitual actions
Replying to
Not entirely keen on anti-mode thinking. The idea of having separate windows is on the same continuum as modes, I think.
1
1
3
Yeah, and Raskin attacks windows on that basis, heh! It’s a heuristic for the underlying “model mapping stability” factor you mention.
1
2
Show replies
Replying to
I do think it's bad when users are left without a reliable mental model of a program's state.
Replying to
I think temporary modes (drag/drop is also one!) are OK. Copy/paste is IMHO too “mode-y” and invisible for how long-lived pasteboard cont is
1
Replying to
I wish Apple understood this. You can’t build habits on e.g. Today/Notifications when every use sets a mode (active tab, scroll position).