Review Request: rename "import" action to "open as new"

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On Saturday 18 August 2012 22:24:51 Jaroslaw Staniek wrote:
> > But an important one, and I'm thinking that if few people use this useful
> > option it's because they don't really know what it does. Clarifying that
> > would be a good thing, in my mind.> 
> >> Please note it's already redundant because of that, from looking over
> >> shouders of various types of users, I see they tend to use one of the
> >> approaches:
> >> - Open + Save As
> >> - Open + Select + Copy content + New doc + Paste content.
> >> More permutations of these are possible too, I'll leave that for the
> >> reader
> >> 
> >> :)
> > 
> > So it's not redundant, it would save the user a lot of keystrokes if only
> > they realized what the command did.

I don't see how this saves users any keystrokes. Let's compare the task "Get 
the content of an existing file and save it to a new file" with and without this 
feature, with the standard shortcut settings and leaving out interaction with 
file open and save dialogs because they are not affected.
With the feature:
Alt+F, Alt+I, [select file], [edit file], Ctrl+S
Without the feature:
Ctrl+O, [select file], [edit file], Alt+F, Alt+A
Exactly the same amount of keystokes. With mouse clicks, it's the same.

If I have missed something, please correct me.

> > Well, I'm not going to provide you with that list. I think the proposal
> > has enough merits on its own.
> > 
> > To summarize:
> > 
> > * we have an action that has been mislabeled for the past decade or longer
> > * because of that, users don't use it -- they don't know what it does
> > * we never renamed it because the current name is "traditional"
> > * but if we would rename it, it would be clear what it does and improve
> > life for our users
> > 
> > Sounds like a win to me.

Relabeling it would solve the problem of the wrong label, but would still 
leave us with a feature which does little more than cluttering the menu. I'm 
not proposing to go the "Apple way" of removing every feature which is not 
absolutely necessary. However, a feature which has not proven to be of any 
advantage for anybody should simply be removed.

> According to what you say users don't know what the current label
> does. Are we able to measure ambiguity of the current label and also
> the new one?
> 
> In this development, change is always bad if the 'new' is not clearly
> better - to the user.
> 
> In absence of metrics, I am against of this change.
> Current reasoning is not convincing:
> 
> - 'Import' is ambiguous
> - 'Import' is traditional <- pejorative point made here
> - 'Open As New' is clear <- How? Only declaration has been made but no
> explanation of how you understand semantics of this command? e.g. how
> translatable is it?
> 
> It's not a discussion if we should take any action or not. We should.
> It took me a while to explain the above.
> 
> As stated above, I propose to remove the Import option for apps that
> do not offer anything beyond the functionality already provided by
> Open.

I agree with Jaroslaw here. Unless I missed something, there is no actual 
advantage of using "Open as new" vs. Open + Save As. Therefore it _is_ 
redundant.

I invite anyone to prove me wrong by telling me what that feature offers which 
Open + Save As does not and I gladly withdraw my objection. Until then, I 
strongly object keeping the feature in.

The new label does make sense to me, though, so if the feature stays, it 
should be given that label.

Cheers,
Thomas