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jmoenig / Snap

a visual programming language inspired by Scratch
http://snap.berkeley.edu
GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
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more hover messages #2450

Open maryfries opened 5 years ago

maryfries commented 5 years ago

Some teachers at CSTA are finding the interface hard to get used to (including Scratch teachers). We have hover messages on the new sprite, paint sprite, and camera snapshot buttons. Could we also have hover messages on other things like all the buttons across the top and the tabs for scripts, costumes, and sounds?

jmoenig commented 5 years ago

hmm... that kind feedback isn't terribly helpful. I would assume teachers - let alone "Scratch teacher" - to be familiar with the green flag and the red stop sign buttons. It's hard to imagine anyone having a hard time guessing what the pause button might do, so I think those are probably okay and unambiguous.

The file, cloud and settings buttons.... come on, they're the same everywhere. So, what's left are the presentation-mode (full screen) and stage-scale buttons. The stage-scale buttons don't have any hover help in Scratch either, and they pretty much look like ours. The presentation mode button... yeah, I guess we could add help to that).

The one button that's different ist the visible stepping toggle. It already has hover help.

maryfries commented 5 years ago

I don't know if they are the same everywhere. Most file menus just say, "File," for example; that's the one that one teacher I saw was confused about (and something they said about it). In my experience, some people just aren't good at seeing a picture of a cloud and realizing that's about cloud services or seeing a gear and realizing that's about settings. I'm not sure if it's an experience thing or if it's just an "everyone's brains work differently thing." * Additionally in Snap, some buttons of that size and shape are just buttons while others are menus; so that adds another stretch of cognitive confidence when clicking around for what you think you need and hope will be there.

Also, I saw the green flag repeatedly confuse people because they expected it to start everything the way the stop button stops everything. One person in particular really struggled to understand that green flag was more selective about what it runs (even with me there explaining it). This is something I plan to clarify better in the early pages of BJC, but a clarifying hover button ("start scripts that begin with a green flag") would also help because students and teachers alike race through the pages without reading carefully. :/

I understand why adding these hovers could feel unnecessary, but it wouldn't really inconvenience the familiar user, and it would help a lot in workshop settings where we are trying to quickly sell new-to-Snap teachers on BJC. And if we find it does inconvenience familiar users, perhaps we could add a "turn off hover messages" setting.

I never would have thought of things until I saw new-to-Snap CS teachers genuinely struggling with them at CSTA yesterday...

One other related suggestion: could the "new sprite" button have a little plus sign in it? That would make it much clearer that it's adding something. Some people didn't understand that button either (even though that one even has a hover), including a former Scratch user.

cycomachead commented 5 years ago

Icons + Text are always better than either alone. it's critical for many people with cognitive disabilities and definitely aid in learning interfaces. Tooltips are a good solution, because there's not always space for both.

Icons are compact and recognizable, but not very explanatory. Text is very explanatory (when well written) but consumes space and needs to be read (slower, not as recognizable).