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How is it as the expense of novices? They were fine without it before and they’re fine without knowing about it now. But if they do end up wanting to do some of

How is it as the expense of novices? They were fine without it before and they’re fine without knowing about it now. But if they do end up wanting to do some of that advanced stuff, it’s one Google or friend-suggestion away.

asoneth 6y ago
It's a persuasive argument, and one I've used myself. One danger is if the affordance is triggered accidentally. For example, my kids like pushing buttons and swiping when I wouldn't think to do those things and accidentally switch apps or enter into guided access modes without meaning to. In my case I occasionally trigger things like sticky keys unintentionally. Another danger is if application developers start assuming that they can rely on users knowing hidden affordances and use swiping, double-tapping, force pressing, right-clicking, etc in the core application workflow. Not an Android iOS example, but last night one of my kids started playing Stardew Valley as their first non-tablet game. It has a steep learning curve since it relies on multiple different keyboard keys and on differentiating between right and left-click, whereas I wouldn't consider right-clicking to be a novice skill.
- frosted-flakes 6y ago
  On Windows anyway, I think most users are very familiar with the right-click context menu. A lot of people don't even know the keyboard shortcuts for cut/copy/paste because they just right-click and there it is. For complete novices, the first thing they do is click the mouse, and since there are only two buttons it doesn't take long to figure out that left-click is the primary button, and right-click brings up a menu with handy options (practically everything has a context menu in Windows). But with the Web, where context menus are rare, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not as well-known anymore.
  - asoneth 6y ago
    I think you may be right about the web. It is not my experience that novices think to look in right-click context menus on the web, with the exception of text operations like copying text that you mention, and sometimes link actions. (I'm basing this off dozens of usability studies on web-based applications, it may be different for older windows applications.) I have theories -- maybe it's because most web apps do not bother with context menus (outside of text operations), maybe it's because more people have developed their mental model from touchscreen devices where context menus are less commonly used, maybe more people are on laptops with trackpads that do not make right-clicking as obvious, maybe because there's no visual affordance indicating which onscreen elements have a useful context menu and which have the standard webpage context menu so it's a guessing game. I don't honestly know. But I am confident that if you place key functionality in a context menu of a web-based app that most novice users will not discover it on their own. As per Jakob Nielsen: "...be warned: less skilled users rarely use these [context] menus." [1] Once end-users learn how to use your app (and therefore are no longer novices) then they seem to have no trouble remembering and using context menus, so it's a great way to expose expert affordances. In the case of my kids I can also say that the Stardew Valley user interface (such as keeping right-click and left-click actions straight) has been the most difficult part of the game so far. And it doesn't seem like it was particularly necessary distinction to make -- there seem to be few cases where both right- and left-click actions are equally appropriate. [1] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/feature-richness-and-user-engagement/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/feature-richness-and-user-e...

asoneth 6y ago

It's a persuasive argument, and one I've used myself. One danger is if the affordance is triggered accidentally. For example, my kids like pushing buttons and swiping when I wouldn't think to do those things and accidentally switch apps or enter into guided access modes without meaning to. In my case I occasionally trigger things like sticky keys unintentionally. Another danger is if application developers start assuming that they can rely on users knowing hidden affordances and use swiping, double-tapping, force pressing, right-clicking, etc in the core application workflow. Not an Android iOS example, but last night one of my kids started playing Stardew Valley as their first non-tablet game. It has a steep learning curve since it relies on multiple different keyboard keys and on differentiating between right and left-click, whereas I wouldn't consider right-clicking to be a novice skill.

frosted-flakes 6y ago
On Windows anyway, I think most users are very familiar with the right-click context menu. A lot of people don't even know the keyboard shortcuts for cut/copy/paste because they just right-click and there it is. For complete novices, the first thing they do is click the mouse, and since there are only two buttons it doesn't take long to figure out that left-click is the primary button, and right-click brings up a menu with handy options (practically everything has a context menu in Windows). But with the Web, where context menus are rare, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not as well-known anymore.
- asoneth 6y ago
  I think you may be right about the web. It is not my experience that novices think to look in right-click context menus on the web, with the exception of text operations like copying text that you mention, and sometimes link actions. (I'm basing this off dozens of usability studies on web-based applications, it may be different for older windows applications.) I have theories -- maybe it's because most web apps do not bother with context menus (outside of text operations), maybe it's because more people have developed their mental model from touchscreen devices where context menus are less commonly used, maybe more people are on laptops with trackpads that do not make right-clicking as obvious, maybe because there's no visual affordance indicating which onscreen elements have a useful context menu and which have the standard webpage context menu so it's a guessing game. I don't honestly know. But I am confident that if you place key functionality in a context menu of a web-based app that most novice users will not discover it on their own. As per Jakob Nielsen: "...be warned: less skilled users rarely use these [context] menus." [1] Once end-users learn how to use your app (and therefore are no longer novices) then they seem to have no trouble remembering and using context menus, so it's a great way to expose expert affordances. In the case of my kids I can also say that the Stardew Valley user interface (such as keeping right-click and left-click actions straight) has been the most difficult part of the game so far. And it doesn't seem like it was particularly necessary distinction to make -- there seem to be few cases where both right- and left-click actions are equally appropriate. [1] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/feature-richness-and-user-engagement/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/feature-richness-and-user-e...