SystemTray: pop-up window position

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Friday, November 16, 2012 23:23:30 Djuro Drljaca wrote:
> the problem with alignment to center is that you can't know where the text
> will be positioned on the screen. 

a small nitpick: you also don't know where it will be positioned when left 
aligned. it is only the frame that is aligned; the contents appear somewhere 
therein.

that said, it is true with a predictable frame anchor point you can more 
accurately guess where the text will appear.

> When the text starts approximately at the
> vertical line where you last click was there is less effort needed to find
> the text, if it is aligned to center you must first wait for it to fully
> appear on the screen and then follow the text to the left until you find
> the start of text so that you can start reading :)

this is not how human visual recognition works. we don't track text to left to 
find margins, we perceive the larger blocks (edges) and jump to them. that is 
why consistent alignment between elements is so important: it allows our edge 
detection and grouping processing to work to our benefit.

i would not be surprised if there is some small time difference between 
predictable left anchoring and dynamic center anchoring. however, it is also 
unlikely that anyone reacts to the pixel even with left anchoring; center 
anchoring in practice does not move the text placement that much either. in 
fact, it is probably well within the placement error delta for left anchored 
positioning .. and so i would also not be surprised if there is no meaningful 
time difference.

now, whatever time difference there may be is probably utterly insignificant in 
practice. (i say probably because i don't have data from a study to throw at 
this right now, not because i have reason to doubt the statement based on my 
understanding of human perception.) which means we can probably afford to 
favour beauty over perfectly optimized function.

a perfectly usage-optimized interface (physical or computer) can create lower 
satisfaction if it looks uglier than a slightly less perfect specimen which is 
more aesthetically pleasing.

welcome to the annoying world of making people happy :)

(btw, did you notice that plasma tooltips have had centered text for a while, 
though it was previously left aligned? the difference in pixel placement is 
very small in most cases, but looks and visually "feels" better. so far nobody 
has said that the tooltips are harder / slower to read.)

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
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