Community
Participate
Working Groups
I just started a 5/6 Eclipse for the first time. I find the main Intro page to be a poor introduction for the new user. The workbench is not a video game. The new user trying Eclipse for the first time shouldn't be faced with a puzzle. First, the text legend has been removed from each button, so you can't tell what the buttons do, or even what KIND of thing they do, until you hover over them. You can't even tell which visual elements are buttons and which are not - the eclipse logo, for instance, isn't a button, even though the thing in the diagonally symmetrical position is a button. Second, the "get me out of here" button has moved out of the center-of-display button cluster, to the upper-right corner. I actually had to hunt for it. Third, this page has an accessibility regression: you can still tab through the buttons and select with the spacebar, but the gray dotted line that appears around the selected button is practically invisible against the patterned blue background. At least on my display. Please, stop the madness.
Using an Eclipse build dated 200405211200, this page has improved accessibility: tabbing through the buttons now provides a visible highlight and the text legend for each in turn. However, there are three hits of the Tab key per cycle that don't appear to do anything.
I like the word "befuddling" in the title :) I'm not sure what the previous discussions were around not using labels. I will say that relying on images only, only works if you can be sure that the user is either already familiar with the imagery, or can make a good guess. Otherwise they convey no information and user is left needing to hunt around with hover help to learn. But then they must also remember for each. I can see why this is frustrating. I like clean design but imho it should never be at the cost of usability (in fact, it should enhance it). I'm pro labels in this case and I have no doubt they can be done 'tastefully'. Granted, a product with lots of content on this screen could look cluttered so we'll need to be careful. Randy, as an owner of a "big" eclipse based product, what does your intro screen now look like and what are your thoughts?
Hi Kevin... replying on behalf of Randy... Agree with the original poster, the eclipse welcome is not very usable as is. For our product, we did the following: 1) removed some of the categories shown on the welcome screen (now down to 4). We felt it was just too much. 2) We aligned the remaining 4 icons into a row in the middle of the screen 3) Each icon now has a label and a brief description underneath it We have not done anything concerning the link to leave the welcome page and go to the product perspective. We have some other design ideas for the welcome, but for now, it is low on our priority list.
The new Slate theme which is the default for Eclipse 3.6 now has labels which always show without having to hover over them.
