Archive for June, 2009
Why choice reduces usability
We usually consider choice as being a good thing, whether it be around choice of restaurant, chocolate bar, clothing, or technology. Choice makes us feel empowered, and variety adds richness to life.
Not surprisingly, embedded in the design philosophy of Eclipse is the notion that “choice is good”. Clearly then, if some choice is good, more [...]
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Eclipse UI Real Estate Wasters!
In my last post I showed a mockup of what Eclipse might look like if we made use of a little extra space for layout and graphical finesse. For those who want to run Eclipse on a device with a small screen, I agree that a denser UI is better. But for typical desktop development [...]
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Every pixel is sacred (not any more!)
The Eclipse SDK UI design has always been about maximal use of real estate. We packed those widgets in solid! At the time this made sense given limited screen real estate but as the years have progressed, screens have gotten a lot bigger and a lot cheaper.
Consider the following. In 2001, when [...]
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