Ubuntu 11.04 and Unity

[Ben Eisenbraun]

On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 12:01:01PM -0400, Jarod Wilson wrote:
> On May 10, 2011, at 8:57 PM, Tom Metro wrote:
> > But the whole point of menus are to provide a documentation crutch for
> > infrequent operations or infrequent users. For the latter case, if you
> > make the menus less convenient to use, then you impede the learning that
> > leads to using the menus less.
> 
> Meh. Top of the screen isn't all that inconvenient to me. Its always
> in the exact same place, so finding it with a simple muscle memory
> trained flick of the mouse/touchpad/whatever is rather quick. In some
> ways, that's superior to having to pay attention to what you're doing
> as you track the cursor on screen to an in-window menu.

That's the basic reasoning for the menu bar placement in the original Apple
Human Interface Guidelines.  The four corners of the screen are the easiest
places to find with a mouse, since they require the least accuracy to get
there.

We are all highly trained geeks with finely tuned muscle memory from
countless hours of FPS gaming, and it's no problem for us to "shoot the
pixel", but for "normals"* being able to jam the mouse toward the top of the
table and always hit the menu bar is a huge plus.

-b

* also the elderly, people with disabilities, small children, etc.

--
faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there
is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
                                                <john kenneth galbraith>