Switches around the world and broken metaphors [Was: Battery Monitor revamp]

[Martin Graesslin]

On Saturday 25 May 2013 09:14:03 Daniel Nicoletti wrote:
> 2013/5/25 Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo at kde.org>:
> > Switches are not to be used on Desktop. For 4.11 the QML switch component
> > appears as a checkbox, so you really don't have a choice in the end. The
> > reasons are:
> > 
> > * consistency
> > * input device appropriateness
> > * people use them poorly on desktop (just look at UIs that use them
> > extensively on desktop and what the layouts end up looking like ..
> > horrendous, often with labels on the left and switch crammed far off to
> > the right. just like in this draft of the battery, actually, which ends
> > up having an odd widget floating off on its own)
> 
> I'm sorry but I've been hearing the same phrase over and over KDE people,
> "if something is broken go fix it instead of working around".
> 
> And this is clearly the case let's work around something we don't want to
> fix. Switches are a clear improvement over checkboxes depending on the
> context even my 60yo mom got it much quickier than a checkbox would be able
> to on my plasmoids.
And I would completely fail to use the switch. I have huge problems 
understanding those switches and I have not seen any implementation of the 
switch where I got which one is on and which one is off.

These switches are very useful in certain parts of the world (e.g. US) where 
every light switch is like that. It was quite an epiphany to me when I visited 
the US last year - I finally got what these switches are supposed to be. For me 
this switch is just a not working metaphor as we don't have switches like that 
in this part of the world [1].

Just something to remember when it comes to metaphors. They might be awesome 
for some, but if one doesn't understand it, it makes it much more difficult.

Cheers
Martin

[1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lichtschalter.jpg