Layout Customizer Keyboard Interaction

[Allison Bloodworth]

In Yahoo!, iGoogle, & Facebook there is no message if the user tries  
to move a portlet too far up, down, to the right or to the left.  
There is just no drop target so when released it just jumps back to  
where it was. I would think that creating error messages for all  
these movements could be very distracting to the user. It is a little  
move obvious what the problem is when you are trying to drag a  
portlet over the 'edge' of the page (or even to the bottom of a  
column when it is already the bottom portlet), so while an error  
message helps when it may be unclear why there isn't a drop target  
(e.g. with a locked portlet), I don't think an error message is  
necessary in the case Michelle describes. What do others think?

Allison

On May 20, 2008, at 10:53 AM, Michelle D'Souza wrote:

>
> In the keyboard interaction for the Layout Customizer, there is a
> warning message that is shown when trying to move a portlet above a
> locked portlet. The warning message text in the mockups is: "The box
> cannot be placed any higher in this column."  I assume that the
> warning message would also show if the user tried to move the last
> portlet in a column down or the user tried to move a portlet in the
> rightmost (or leftmost) column right (or left).
>
> The actual text will, of course, be customizable. What I'm wondering
> about is whether I require four different messages - one for each
> direction - or whether a more generic message would be reasonable.
> Perhaps something like: "The portlet cannot be moved in that
> direction." Which shows up in response to the direction key that the
> user has just pressed.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Michelle
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Michelle D'Souza
> Software Developer, Fluid Project
> Adaptive Technology Resource Centre
> University of Toronto
>
>
>
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Allison Bloodworth
Senior User Interaction Designer
Educational Technology Services
University of California, Berkeley
(415) 377-8243
abloodworth at berkeley.edu




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