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Universal search in UI is cool, and I’m all for it, but it shouldn’t be the only/primary way of accessing tools as tool discoverability is very low. The author

by 542458 3y ago

Universal search in UI is cool, and I’m all for it, but it shouldn’t be the only/primary way of accessing tools as tool discoverability is very low. The author tries to deal with this by putting the a menu next to a search bar and putting hints in the bottom menu (which I don’t think would really work here, as raster tools are less selection-specific than 3D tools). Search fixes the speed-of-access issue, but doesn’t help discoverability very much, as users still have to hunt through highly nested menus. Looking at the screenshots here, I don’t think you actually need search to make those menus more manageable. One screenshot of current GIMP shows a menu tree that looks like “filter->render->noise->solid noise…”. I think you could probably combine the entire noise submenu from that tree, and make it instead a segmented control on the actual “noise” dialog that chooses your type of noise. I suspect dropping the “render” level as well would also be good. “Render” is a bit of a jargon-y term in the context of graphics editing, and I don’t think it means much to most people using it. Furthermore, the top “filter” menu isn’t actually all that long, and people generally prefer wide flatter trees to narrower deeper trees. So, I’d pitch for a simpler menu that would just be “filter->noise…”. By flattening and combining, I think that menu could be made much more usable and discoverable.

skrebbel 3y ago
> Universal search in UI is cool, and I’m all for it, but it shouldn’t be the only/primary way of accessing tools as tool discoverability is very low. This is the core point made in the article.
- echelon 3y ago
  How do you support discoverability, sleek work areas with minimal interfaces such as search, and power users at the same time? What does that look like?
  - et1337 3y ago
    Look at the Blender UI. Every command is searchable via F3, available via menus, and sometimes also available via a keyboard shortcut.
  - derefr 3y ago
    It looks like having multiple selectable interface layouts for different types of user with different discoverability needs. Photoshop does this.
  - sparkie 3y ago
    Menus with lots of options, properly labelled and organized, and displaying keyboard shortcuts next to them, like pretty much any software written in the 90s. Tooltips when you hover over things. Actual documentation built into the software rather than tucked away in a man page or only found in a forum you discovered by searching for your problem. I don't think it's power users these designers are trying to cater for. They make things more difficult for power users by hiding useful options in some tab in a modal settings dialog, which is a PITA to find and click if you need to change it often. Often they remove something completely from the UI and you need to go find the config file and manually edit some text and restart the program to get functionality back. They're trying to cater for novices - they think too many controls on display is going to confuse or overwhelm them. I blame Barry Schwartz[1] If they were trying to cater for power users they would let power users configure their interfaces to suit them. Modern interfaces are "fixed" in the image of the designer, and screw you, the user. [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice
    - eviks 3y ago
      > If they were trying to cater for power users they would let power users configure their interfaces to suit them. Exactly, and both in the immediate UI (like, ctrl-right click on a menu and enter the new shortcuts right there) and in config files to allow for batch search&replace editing
    - Gibbon1 3y ago
      Old school autocad back when I had access you could configure menu's yourself. I see no reason that you couldn't do that with a modern application. One thing I did with GUI I wrote for a customer was added a notes item to the right click menu on every control. Click it an editable text box shows up. With an option to mail me the notes data so I could incorporate it in the next release.
  - CyberDildonics 3y ago
    It looks like most content creation programs where somewhere there is a big list of everything you can look through. Look at houdini's nodes interface. You hit tab and a huge list of nodes comes up. Start typing and it will filter the list as you type.
crazygringo 3y ago
Universal UI search is great, and at this point it should be present in all but the simplest applications. I first saw it introduced in Google Docs, and it's precisely for things you suspect exist, but it's not even remotely clear which menu, submenu, or dialog it's in. (Apple OS Settings is another great example of it.) E.g., you want to apply a hanging indent in Docs? Just type "hanging" into the menu search, and it shows "Indentation options". It's smart enough to know that hanging indentation is an option within the dialog that shows up there. And the menu search seems to have a large range of synonyms, so typing "picture" brings up lots of "insert image" choices. But it bothers me that even in Docs, almost nobody knows about menu search because it's hidden under the "Help" menu, rather than being a nice prominent rounded search box in the upper-right corner like you'd expect. Menus are great for discoverability (so do not get rid of them), but frequently you know what an application can or cannot do (e.g. you assume a word processor can do hanging indents or watermarks), but you don't know where exactly it lurks in the menus or which tab of the settings dialog, and don't want to waste two minutes hunting for it. It's time for a universal search box to exist in every major desktop application. Apple and Microsoft really need to take the lead here to provide standard API's and UX components for this, and it saddens me that they haven't, and continue to show no signs of interest.
- psd1 3y ago
  My first exposure to command search was in VSCode, so there's that
- jonhohle 3y ago
  macOS has had the ability to search menus for what seems like a decade. It should be a feature of the toolkit, not something apps need to implement themselves. This doesn’t extend to other UI elements (like System Prefs/Settings), but I agree that it should (and again, should be a toolkit feature).
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    > macOS has had the ability to search menus for what seems like a decade. Wow, TIL. Talk about a hidden feature. So it turns out it's under the "Help" menu, and it just says "Search". I had always assumed that this searched help topics, not menus. But it's also pretty miminal, seemingly without support for synonyms or features inside of dialog boxes -- e.g. if you type "pref" it won't find "Settings". It also doesn't have a keyboard shortcut to trigger it (like Docs). So I think there's still a long way to go to make it a central UX feature.
holoduke 3y ago
I started with rhino3d a while ago. I like that everything can be done by typing a command. By default your cursor is in a command field and everything you type instantly searches for a command. There are menu items as well. But once you get used to typing commands its so damn fast.
- kossTKR 3y ago
  Yes! I also encountered this in Rhino 10+ years ago and instantly implemented in multiple online projects with great success. What's crazy is that i'm pretty most times wasted on a computer is from "where is this setting, how do i do this" type stuff, in users ranging from experts to the elderly. It's bizarre to me that this hasn't been implemented all over faster. Instead cloud interfaces have become even more esoteric in my opinion. All functions on a computer should have a tiny descriptive string you can search for. The GUI paradigm from the last 30 years in was a mistake with nested stuff just hiding in random places. CLI was a bit better when you could pipe / search etc. but for most people Universal Search is it.
calamari4065 3y ago
My problem with GIMP is that there's too many ways to access controls and some controls only appear in certain menus. You've got the iconographic tool picker which has submenus on right-click for some tools. Then there's the classic menu ribbon at the top which has most things you expect. Then there's the right-click context menu inside the canvas that has a subset of all other menu items. And then you have inscrutable hotkeys. Some actions are reasonable, others are not. There's too many hotkey layers with modifier keys and some actions which should be on the same layer are not. Then there's the escape key. Sometimes it does what you want, other times it just gives you an error ding with no other information. The core problem with GIMP is that the interface is bad. No two ways about it, it's just bad. It needs a total redesign, but that would be unacceptable as it would alienate evryobe who has already learned it. As an editing program, GIMP does everything you need and then some. It's fully featured and functional, just not usable. That said, GIMP is still my only choice for photo editing. All the other options are worse in different and mostly worse ways.
- TylerE 3y ago
  I’d say it’s biggest core issue, even more that the UI, is that it’s basically harecoded to work with generic RGB. No native CMYK or good support for color management.
  - prokoudine 3y ago
    > basically harecoded to work with generic RGB The days of that are numbered.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  You are contradicting yourself. If it is your only choice, it means it is usable. Is it without fault, no. Usable yes.
  - fsckboy 3y ago
    the way I used to crop photos they moved/broke, so now I have mypaint installed so I can use it for cropping. Then I switch back to gimp. It's used, but not usable, a bit like a used car.
janalsncm 3y ago
There’s a huge amount of head room to improve search though. For each of the items we can add all sorts of synonyms and descriptions so that users at any level can find the tool they’re looking for. And we can even add crude customization to the search. Gimp can easily remember the prefix-tool click pairs, so that you don’t even need to type “cropping tool”, if you type “cr” Gimp will remember which tool you clicked last time.
squeaky-clean 3y ago
> So, I’d pitch for a simpler menu that would just be “filter->noise…”. Noise being in the Filters menu never made sense to me. Noise is an input source. It's like classifying the paintbrush tool as a filter. I shouldn't be too hard on GIMP for that I guess, as Photoshop puts it under filters as well.

by 542458 3y ago

skrebbel 3y ago

> Universal search in UI is cool, and I’m all for it, but it shouldn’t be the only/primary way of accessing tools as tool discoverability is very low. This is the core point made in the article.

echelon 3y ago
How do you support discoverability, sleek work areas with minimal interfaces such as search, and power users at the same time? What does that look like?
- et1337 3y ago
  Look at the Blender UI. Every command is searchable via F3, available via menus, and sometimes also available via a keyboard shortcut.
- derefr 3y ago
  It looks like having multiple selectable interface layouts for different types of user with different discoverability needs. Photoshop does this.
- sparkie 3y ago
  Menus with lots of options, properly labelled and organized, and displaying keyboard shortcuts next to them, like pretty much any software written in the 90s. Tooltips when you hover over things. Actual documentation built into the software rather than tucked away in a man page or only found in a forum you discovered by searching for your problem. I don't think it's power users these designers are trying to cater for. They make things more difficult for power users by hiding useful options in some tab in a modal settings dialog, which is a PITA to find and click if you need to change it often. Often they remove something completely from the UI and you need to go find the config file and manually edit some text and restart the program to get functionality back. They're trying to cater for novices - they think too many controls on display is going to confuse or overwhelm them. I blame Barry Schwartz[1] If they were trying to cater for power users they would let power users configure their interfaces to suit them. Modern interfaces are "fixed" in the image of the designer, and screw you, the user. [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice
  - eviks 3y ago
    > If they were trying to cater for power users they would let power users configure their interfaces to suit them. Exactly, and both in the immediate UI (like, ctrl-right click on a menu and enter the new shortcuts right there) and in config files to allow for batch search&replace editing
  - Gibbon1 3y ago
    Old school autocad back when I had access you could configure menu's yourself. I see no reason that you couldn't do that with a modern application. One thing I did with GUI I wrote for a customer was added a notes item to the right click menu on every control. Click it an editable text box shows up. With an option to mail me the notes data so I could incorporate it in the next release.
- CyberDildonics 3y ago
  It looks like most content creation programs where somewhere there is a big list of everything you can look through. Look at houdini's nodes interface. You hit tab and a huge list of nodes comes up. Start typing and it will filter the list as you type.

crazygringo 3y ago

Universal UI search is great, and at this point it should be present in all but the simplest applications. I first saw it introduced in Google Docs, and it's precisely for things you suspect exist, but it's not even remotely clear which menu, submenu, or dialog it's in. (Apple OS Settings is another great example of it.) E.g., you want to apply a hanging indent in Docs? Just type "hanging" into the menu search, and it shows "Indentation options". It's smart enough to know that hanging indentation is an option within the dialog that shows up there. And the menu search seems to have a large range of synonyms, so typing "picture" brings up lots of "insert image" choices. But it bothers me that even in Docs, almost nobody knows about menu search because it's hidden under the "Help" menu, rather than being a nice prominent rounded search box in the upper-right corner like you'd expect. Menus are great for discoverability (so do not get rid of them), but frequently you know what an application can or cannot do (e.g. you assume a word processor can do hanging indents or watermarks), but you don't know where exactly it lurks in the menus or which tab of the settings dialog, and don't want to waste two minutes hunting for it. It's time for a universal search box to exist in every major desktop application. Apple and Microsoft really need to take the lead here to provide standard API's and UX components for this, and it saddens me that they haven't, and continue to show no signs of interest.

psd1 3y ago
My first exposure to command search was in VSCode, so there's that
jonhohle 3y ago
macOS has had the ability to search menus for what seems like a decade. It should be a feature of the toolkit, not something apps need to implement themselves. This doesn’t extend to other UI elements (like System Prefs/Settings), but I agree that it should (and again, should be a toolkit feature).
- crazygringo 3y ago
  > macOS has had the ability to search menus for what seems like a decade. Wow, TIL. Talk about a hidden feature. So it turns out it's under the "Help" menu, and it just says "Search". I had always assumed that this searched help topics, not menus. But it's also pretty miminal, seemingly without support for synonyms or features inside of dialog boxes -- e.g. if you type "pref" it won't find "Settings". It also doesn't have a keyboard shortcut to trigger it (like Docs). So I think there's still a long way to go to make it a central UX feature.

holoduke 3y ago

I started with rhino3d a while ago. I like that everything can be done by typing a command. By default your cursor is in a command field and everything you type instantly searches for a command. There are menu items as well. But once you get used to typing commands its so damn fast.

kossTKR 3y ago
Yes! I also encountered this in Rhino 10+ years ago and instantly implemented in multiple online projects with great success. What's crazy is that i'm pretty most times wasted on a computer is from "where is this setting, how do i do this" type stuff, in users ranging from experts to the elderly. It's bizarre to me that this hasn't been implemented all over faster. Instead cloud interfaces have become even more esoteric in my opinion. All functions on a computer should have a tiny descriptive string you can search for. The GUI paradigm from the last 30 years in was a mistake with nested stuff just hiding in random places. CLI was a bit better when you could pipe / search etc. but for most people Universal Search is it.

calamari4065 3y ago

My problem with GIMP is that there's too many ways to access controls and some controls only appear in certain menus. You've got the iconographic tool picker which has submenus on right-click for some tools. Then there's the classic menu ribbon at the top which has most things you expect. Then there's the right-click context menu inside the canvas that has a subset of all other menu items. And then you have inscrutable hotkeys. Some actions are reasonable, others are not. There's too many hotkey layers with modifier keys and some actions which should be on the same layer are not. Then there's the escape key. Sometimes it does what you want, other times it just gives you an error ding with no other information. The core problem with GIMP is that the interface is bad. No two ways about it, it's just bad. It needs a total redesign, but that would be unacceptable as it would alienate evryobe who has already learned it. As an editing program, GIMP does everything you need and then some. It's fully featured and functional, just not usable. That said, GIMP is still my only choice for photo editing. All the other options are worse in different and mostly worse ways.

TylerE 3y ago
I’d say it’s biggest core issue, even more that the UI, is that it’s basically harecoded to work with generic RGB. No native CMYK or good support for color management.
- prokoudine 3y ago
  > basically harecoded to work with generic RGB The days of that are numbered.
prmoustache 3y ago
You are contradicting yourself. If it is your only choice, it means it is usable. Is it without fault, no. Usable yes.
- fsckboy 3y ago
  the way I used to crop photos they moved/broke, so now I have mypaint installed so I can use it for cropping. Then I switch back to gimp. It's used, but not usable, a bit like a used car.

janalsncm 3y ago

There’s a huge amount of head room to improve search though. For each of the items we can add all sorts of synonyms and descriptions so that users at any level can find the tool they’re looking for. And we can even add crude customization to the search. Gimp can easily remember the prefix-tool click pairs, so that you don’t even need to type “cropping tool”, if you type “cr” Gimp will remember which tool you clicked last time.

squeaky-clean 3y ago

> So, I’d pitch for a simpler menu that would just be “filter->noise…”. Noise being in the Filters menu never made sense to me. Noise is an input source. It's like classifying the paintbrush tool as a filter. I shouldn't be too hard on GIMP for that I guess, as Photoshop puts it under filters as well.