Double-click? Oh how conventional of you, darling!

Re: 1 out of 10

To be fair, last week's article about the self-service tills was laugh-out-loud funny (or at least I found it so) - and he'd have to do remarkably well to come close to that one.

Re: 1 out of 10

Really? I think it's exactly the same format as all of his other articles:

- whinge about something that's bothered him about something this week inspiring others to write in and whinge about when the same thing bothered them, thereby allowing them to feel that they are part of a community of other people that are hard done to.

- throw in a mention of something from the 70s/80s to whip up a bit of nostalgia in people, causing them to write in about the something that they once did in the 70s/80s. After all someone else has mentioned the subject, thereby giving them license to add to it, so they do so in the hope that because they're interested in what they themselves did over 30 years ago, complete strangers might be interested in it too.

It's a cross between a self-help group for trivial problems and the communal room in an old folk's home.

A kind of El Reg's version of Grumpy Old Men if you will, but without the relief of a soothing Geoffrey Palmer voiceover. Come to think of it, he does look a bit like Will Self in that photo...

Re: Double clicking ...

So a double-click is click to select then click to open.

Wheres two single clicks is click to select then click to edit.

That doesn't explain why -- it just shows that the UI designer decided to give a single user action (click) three different interpretations for the same object depending on context. And the contextual difference between click-click and click-pause-click is fine enough that it trips up even the most seasoned user, especially when the threshold for the pause differs between systems (or even worse, depending on how busy a single system is.)

Making it even worse are systems which have click-click for open, click-pause-click for rename, and click-longer pause-click does something different (or nothing at all.)

Sure you can teach people these things, but you're not supposed to teach stupid.

Re: Double clicking ...

I agree, click to select and click again to edit is standard, albeit slightly obscure. But the part where the second click had to fall within a certain time limit is completely inexcusable. I've just never heard of that.

Re: Standards...

It's not just Citroen's, my Peugeot* puts the buttons for the electric windows not on the doors, near the actual windows (what a typically un-french, non-romantic idea!). No, the controls for the windows are in the middle of the car, just behind the handbrake.

Of course, this means every time I get into another car I fruitlessly scrabble next to the handbrake before realising that the buttons are next to the window.

I suppose I should count myself lucky that the handbrake is in the middle of the car, not on the roof or something.

*Peugeot - an impossible word for a dyslexic to spell.

Re: Standards...

"Back when I was learning to drive every car was different"

Me too, me too! methinks you are referring to the 70s or thereabouts?

"the wipers and the indicators seeming to swap randomly"

There is a reason for that. It took me a long time to work it out, but it's based on the country of origin of the car. A right-hand drive vehicle has the gear stick on the left, so the indicator control is on the right. The wipers (presumably used less often than the indicators) are on the same side as the gears. Everything is mirror-imaged in a car designed for a left-hand drive market, which when it's sold in Britain only has the driver's cockpit transplanted to the other side of the car, not transposed.

Similarly the fuel tank filler point is on the side of the car that in its original market would be opposite the driver's side. Maybe in some places you still have petrol pumps at the side of the road...? The mind boggles at the thought.

"sometimes the horn was at the center of the wheel, sometimes on the end of the indicator stick"

Thank God that is one quirk that seems to have disappeared. I think the little knobby at the end of the indicator stalk was a British thing - specifically, BMC / Leyland - I remember a couple of Minis and Austins with that very-hard-to-find-in-an-emergency horn button. And let's face it, the horn *is* supposed to be an emergency control!

Re: Fooling with conventions

Nah. In 1970s France the only thing you really needed to locate in a car was the cigarette lighter and your passenger's perky nipples*

And the handle to wind down the window when you realise that the beautiful girl, who has just allowed you to hitch a lift on a hot Summer day, absolutely stinks :-( Admittedly in the 1990s, but I imagine it could only have been worse in the 1970s.

Re: Fooling with conventions

in which case your SoL on the citroen, as it does not have a cigarette lighter,

in stead it comes with a cigar lighter .

Yes, the mind baffles .....

Re: But... but...

Nah, they just listed them in the order they found them while writing the manual.

Re: IT angle got a bit curved here.

The issue is not about interpreting what users need. It's about following convention. Double-clicking is a convention. So is an indicator lever on a stick. So is pressing on the centre of a steering wheel to sound the horn. I don't see any difference between hardware and software. If Citroen did software, they'd probably put the program menus at the bottom of the screen - potentially a clever idea but it would drive everyone nuts.