Comments on: UI race conditions

By: Corey

Corey — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:09:07 +0000

I’m in the no-disable boat, personally. The problem could be more properly solved by writing code with less bloat and better UI design from the start

- Wait until the view is compiled before attempting to draw it.
- Load the view before the corresponding click-map.
- Give the user appropriate feedback when activity is being processed to allow them to make an intelligent choice about whether they should be clicking or not.

Just my two-cents.

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:54:34 +0000

The "originality" question is an interesting one. I remember when I was in college a friend on AOL IM asked a similar question about his existence and thoughts. So at least the questioning part of your blog posting is not original. However, I believe that the focus may be on the wrong track. It is not whether your idea is original, but whether your implementation is. What I am trying to say is it is important to take risks and to finish things, and ideas are only the first step.

I also find it very understandable to say that parts of one’s life is not real, or something that exists in the "real world." However, computer interactions are real, so is school life. I guess it is all in the manner in which you live. Are you acting differently because the world is more insulated from you because you are writing on a computer screen?

I like being exposed to the idea that inadvert actions to an open internet window may show how our inadvert actions (i.e. cutting someone off in traffic, doing the hallway tango with a co-worker) can have "real" consequences.

By: Harry Garland

Harry Garland — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 21:53:05 +0000

Hey get this: The United States of America exists because of a race condition!

Yeah, King George finally agreed to the demands of the colonists to end taxation w/out representation and all that stuff. But by the time his communication reached America (3 months by boat), the British already got their clocks cleaned.

I think it’s totally wrong for anything to popup something in the middle of what you’re doing. Every time it does that, I look at my screen and I say "you had all that real estate on my screen, and yet you chose to disrupt what I’m doing by popping up in the one place where I was working!"

So if you write things that popup in front of the user, try to remind yourself that your opinion of what should be in front of the user at that moment is not as important as the user’s opinion about what should be in front.

Have you ever had a coworker step right in front of you, blocking what you are doing just to tell you that the printer is out of ink?

By: Randy Edmunds

Randy Edmunds — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:21:25 +0000

I don’t see any problem with temporarily disabling the mouse as long as it’s accompanied with an appropriate mouse cursor that indicates it’s disabled.

Another possible solution would be to either scroll the window or move the mouse so that the mouse stays over the same element. This could be very disconcerting, so it should probably only be done in the case that there are mouse click events while the view is updating.

By: Rich Morey

Rich Morey — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 22:39:35 +0000

I think better UI design would help this situation. In the case of the Yahoo chess games, a better option would be to disable the click on that game for a moment and then have the game disappear. Perhaps the list could fill in empty spots and then add "new" spots to the bottom of the list. As far as one program coming up on top of another — I have had this happen where I have pressed a button on a confirmation window that I didn’t even read because I was clicking something else. The "fix" for this, I think, would be for an message box to not come from one program on top of another but rather the Windows task bar blink to let you know a message is "waiting" for you.

By: James Moore

James Moore — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:37:48 +0000

I’m always a bit uncomfortable when it comes to doing stuff with the mouse. I think users think of it as completely hardwired to them, and not under software control at all. Ignoring mouse clicks I think would just end up feeling like a bug. Animation seems like a better solution.

I think a best way to do this would be to activate the electroshock feature that most mice should have – touch the button, get a big shock to your hand, and users will learn to be well-behaved :-).