[IxDA Discuss] Stuffing focus to textbox controls

[jackbellis.com]

Oh yeh, I forgot, this might be another one of those questions that
shouldn't even need to be asked. Users should be able to click directly in
fields that are ostensibly "disabled" and the check box that governs them
should flip to the checked state in so doing. In other words it shouldn't
take two actions to enable the contingent authorization(authentication) 
fields.

Would you deny that inevitably the software that affords task completion in
the fewest possible actions will eventually win?

For learnng purposes, yes it's valuable to have a controlling checkbox
*appear* as a "containing" control. But that doesn't mean that after all
these years it should still be an impediment to the facility of interaction.
The fact that it still is on virtually all apps is simply a relic of the
underlying algorithm... but users don't care about algorithms. Free us from
your check box logic. Stripped of all the history, once again it's a vendor
value (in this case the programmer) instead of a user value. They must be
following me around.

www.jackBellis.com,
www.UsabilityInstitute.com
www.WorkAtHomeWednesday.com
www.SelfishMoralism.com
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Drew" <cfmdesigns at earthlink.net>
To: <discuss at ixda.org>
Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 2:34 PM
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Stuffing focus to textbox controls


> [Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant quoted
> material.]
>
> This may relate to the recent auto-tabbing thread...
>
> For using a proxy server to establish an internet connection, we have one
> checkbox for enabling the proxy, which makes active a textbox for the
> server and port plus another checkbox for authorization.  Turning on the
> second checkbox enables username/password fields.
>
> What should happen with the input focus when the checkboxes are turned on?
> Should it stay where the user last clicked, or should it move to the newly
> enabled textbox, or go somewhere else.  (The first textbox has default cue
> text in it of "server:port"; the other textboes have no default content.)
>
> I'm of the opinion that the user's next action is always going to be to
> fill in the textbox, so moving the focus helps the user.  ("Always": well,
> unless he is just playing around, seeing that the controls work.  If he is
> *using* them, then pretty close to "always".)
>
> The response from the Dev team has been "Maybe that's how who you used to
> work for did it, but that's not how Windows does it, so we won't either."
>
> Is that true?  I couldn't find any examples of enabling sub-controls in
> Windows Explorer (or Internet Explorer or Word) with a little poking
> around, so I can't be sure that the claim is true.  (And if it is true,
> does that just mean Microsoft needs to improve their behaviors?)  Can
> anyone point me to a handful of examples, be they from Microsoft products
> or otherwise?
>
> Thanks.
>
> -- Jim Drew
>   Seattle, WA
>
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