inter-column portlet movement

[John Norman]

FWIW I find the "you can't do that" message superfluous. It took  
seconds only of trial and error to fix the pattern in my mind when I  
first encountered it on netvibes. I may not be typical, but the  
attraction of simplicity over complexity helps persuade me we should  
confirm the need for such "help".

John

On 28 May 2008, at 16:41, Herb Wideman wrote:

> I found when testing out the inter-column portlet movement after  
> reading this thread that ambiguity is generated not by the "This box  
> cannot be placed any higher in this column"message itself but by the  
> fact that this message pops up almost immediately as you start the  
> lateral move, implying it applies to the current column, not the one  
> you are moving the portlet to. My suggestion would be to delay the  
> appearance of the message until 60%+ of the portlet is centred over  
> the new column - then I think the meaning would be clear. Using the  
> term "locked box" as has been suggested may not seem technical to  
> designers, but to a general audience the word "locked" could lead to  
> confusion. especially for those with some impairments (if they don't  
> notice or can't properly interpret the little lock icon in the  
> locked portal).
>
> More generally, though, the lightbox and reorderer functionality and  
> ease of use now seem outstanding - congratulations to all who worked  
> on this!
>
> Herb Wideman
> Senior Researcher
> Institute for Research on Learning Technologies
> York University
> +1
>
> I agree with Daphne--the error message as it stands doesn't make much
> sense in that context. I would use the "This box cannot be placed
> above a locked box" wording. (If we don't want to use the word
> portlet, which is another potential choice but perhaps too technical,
> the only other words I thought *might* make sense here are module,
> section, or cell.)
>
> On May 23, 2008, at 11:51 AM, Daphne Ogle wrote:
>
>> > Nice work!  In general I think it looks great.
>> >
>> > I'm still a little concerned about the ambiguity of the message  
>> about
>> > dragging over a locked portlet.  "This box cannot be placed any  
>> higher
>> > in this column" doesn't make sense if I'm dragging the right  
>> topmost
>> > portlet over the left since I'm not really trying to move it up but
>> > rather over.  It also doesn't tell the user what the problem is.   
>> What
>> > about "This box cannot be placed above a locked portlet." (or box  
>> if
>> > that 's the terminology we are using)?
>> >
>> > -Daphne
>
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