[IxDA Discuss] forced choice widgets?

[Katie Albers]

I think that if the task being performed is one that
violates the users' mental models of the task (and
that seems to be what you are saying) then the best
place to set the expectation that -- for example, you
may get an error that reflects state 2 failure when
your selected end point is state 3 -- then the best
place to do that is as early as possible. In this
case, that means when the user selects the end point

In any case, there are a few points I think really
need to be clarified here:

1) are each of the tasks possible end points or are
they really steps which lead to an inevitable final
end point of mutilation [my, what a lovely image
*that* is]

2) are you sure that the users' mental model of 2 and
3 does not include the previous steps

3) do you need to take care of this by using wording
in your error messages which clarifies that the 1 is a
step in 2 is a step in 3. That's certainly a solution
which would generally be denigrated, but it may be
your best bet here.

4) what on earth are you doing that it is truly
necessary to do it in a way that confronts and
violates the users' mental model?

Katie
================
Katie Albers
User Experience Consultant
katie at firstthought.com
--- Alan Wexelblat <awexelblat at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for the replies.  I'll try to elucidate a
> little, by snipping
> replies together.
> 
> Todd Roberts:
> "Do you know why the process fails? What are the
> options if it does?
> Would the process work correctly if it was run
> again, or are there
> just "bad" datasets that aren't processable?"
> 
> The failure possibilities are numerous.  Sometimes
> it fails because
> the data are bad in some way; sometimes it fails
> because someone else
> in the same system did something.  Sometimes it
> fails because of the
> state of the external world.  The bottom line is
> that we can't
> auto-fix and rerun.
> 
> Katie Alberts suggests:
> 0 fold
> 0 fold and spindle
> 0 fold, spindle and mutilate
> 
> I'm tempted to go with that, but when I initially
> suggested it I ran
> into opposition of the form "people think about
> spindle and mutilate
> separately." Such a dialog would not be congruent
> with the users'
> mental models, insofar as we understand those mental
> models.
> Pragmatically these operations also have long names
> so stringing three
> of them together on a dialog would look ugly as sin.
> 
> Will Parker suggests:
> "the Wizard pattern"
> 
> The problem with that pattern is that it stretches
> things out.  Since
> the user isn't actually DOING the tasks, nor do
> parameters for each
> task need to be input there would be nothing to put
> onto wizard
> screens.  Remember we have users who, dozens of
> times per day, wish to
> just point to some data and say "Here, mutilate this
> for me."  No
> further input is required from them.  I can't see
> Wizard being
> appropriate here.
> 
> Finally, Dante Murphy asked:
> "can't you just un-fold the data if spindle failed?"
> 
> The answer is "maybe."  Folding the data may have
> side effects outside
> the system, so atomic rollback would be extremely
> complex and maybe
> impossible.  Even if we did, though, it wouldn't
> solve the problem of
> the user who selected "Mutilate" and got a message
> saying "Fold
> failed."
> 
> I do appreciate the replies.  But I don't think
> there's a simple
> solution here, unless I'm missing something obvious.
> 
> --Alan
>
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