Description Nick Edgar 2001-10-10 22:21:20 EDT

Wizard errors are too obtrusive, and often complain at inappropriate times.

For example, as I'm entering a package name, it complains every time I type '.',
since a package name can't end in '.'.
As another example, create new project, and enter "New Project".  It complains as soon as I hit space

But I shouldn't care about this until I've finished entering my input.
That is, it's checking at a finer grain than my unit of input, which is not helpful.

According to Jef Raskin's book "The Humane Interface", this would qualify our UI as inhumane.

The placement of the errors causes me to be distracted from my locus of attention.
It also hides useful information (the wizard page description).
It would be better to place them nearer to the OK or Next button, since any error message
is useful at the time I go to try to use them and find them disabled.

Ideally, if I enter valid input, I should never have to see an error message, even if I enter something
invalid along the way.

To compare, spelling and grammar checking in Word aren't activated until a meaningful unit of input
has been entered (a word for spelling, a sentence for grammar checking).
Also, it clears the error as soon as the unit of input is edited again, and does not check again until done
editing the unit of input.

I recommend:
	- enabling or disabling the buttons right away, to avoid them being pressed with invalid input
		- they are far enough away from the user's locus of attention that this shouldn't be distracting
	- have a delay of 0.5 secs before showing the error message
	- show it near the buttons, not near the top, and not hiding useful info
	- don't use high contrast for the error

VA/Java actually does a pretty decent job of this, even without any delays.

NOTES: