bugStraw, desktop news aggregator - Bugs: bug #8143, Dialogs for adding feeds are...

 
 

bug #8143: Dialogs for adding feeds are annoying overkill

Submitted by:  Joe Buck <jbuck>
Submitted on:  Sun 14 Mar 2004 07:16:36 PM UTC  
 
Category: NoneSeverity: 3 - Normal
Item Group: BugStatus: Fixed
Privacy: PublicAssigned to: None
Open/Closed: Closed

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Sun 04 Jul 2004 09:58:46 PM UTC, comment #4:

fixed in the current devel version.

Lucas Nussbaum <lnu>
Project Member
Sun 21 Mar 2004 05:29:58 AM UTC, comment #3:

The HIG has something to say about first pages in druids, but that assumes that what you have is a druid. A mechanism to accept one URL and have the program use that URL is not, in my opinion, a druid.

Also, asking a user to confirm a nondestructive action multiple times is broken.

Joe Buck <jbuck>
Tue 16 Mar 2004 08:51:44 AM UTC, comment #2:

This issue has been raised before, but the HIG has something to say about first pages in druids, so I'm not sure if we can scrap that page.

As for the wordings, I guess we really need to rephrase the some of the wordings there.

Thanks for bringing this out though. We'll think of redesigning the subscription process in the future. Watch the list probably for discussions on this.

Cheers,

Jan Alonzo <jmalonzo>
Project Administrator
Tue 16 Mar 2004 05:12:03 AM UTC, comment #1:

An update on this: there are cases where if a feed is added, it is really multiple feeds, and the user must be asked which ones he or she wants. For example, the user who subscribes
to http://partners.userland.com/nytRss/ will be asked which of the New York Times sections he or she wants to subscribe to. This case is handled by Straw just fine (except for the extra initial dialog talking about a "druid": if the first dialog prompts for the URL, the rest is fine). But if there is only one feed to subscribe to, Just Do It.

Joe Buck <jbuck>
Sun 14 Mar 2004 07:16:36 PM UTC, original submission:

I considered calling this an "enhancement", but it's a severe enough human interface flaw that I think it should really be called a bug, because contributing to repetitive stress injury is not excusable.

Want to be annoyed? Try starting up straw and signing up for 20 new feeds. Straw gives you three dialogs where one would do, for each feed. The first says

"This druid will walk you through the subscription process.
Press the Forward button if you want to continue"

The second dialog says "Enter the location of the site that you want to subscribe to in the text box below. Press the Forward button if you are done". This is the only useful dialog.

The third dialog (assuming that the user entered a valid RSS feed in the second dialog) says "Press the Apply button if you want to subscribe to the feed below". This is bogus: of course the user wants to subscribe, and it the user changes her mind, unsubscribing later is trivial. You've tripled the number of dialog boxes the user must put up with.

To fix, drop the first and third dialogs. Give the user the second dialog immediately and if the user-supplied feed is valid, subscribe the user without any extra fuss or verbiage.

Basic GUI principle: don't ask the user to confirm an action a second time unless that action potentially causes harm (like data loss).

Joe Buck <jbuck>

 

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Follow 2 latest changes.

Date Changed By Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced By
Sun 04 Jul 2004 09:58:46 PM UTClnuStatusNone=>Fixed
  Open/ClosedOpen=>Closed

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