[PD] tooltips in pd-extended 0.43
Ivica Ico Bukvic
ico at vt.edu
Wed Mar 7 06:38:45 CET 2012
> Even better, off load this to a GUI plugin, then people can choose the
> method that works best for them. But I still like Jonathan's original
> implementation the best.
While there may be "better," neither of them will be best when one relies on the Tcl/tk's implementation that delivers inconsistent results (which is BTW yet another frustrating form of cognitive load whose scope is significantly larger than either of the ones discussed below).
>
> I find that the slightly increased load of moving my eyes down to the
> lower left corner a worthy sacrifice for not being interrupted by a popup
> bubble. Interruptions also increase cognitive load, and should be
> reserved for things that are the most important.
One's interruption, is other person's expectation. If I have tooltips enabled, I am expecting them to pop-up. Whether they do that in the bottom left corner or next to my cursor is irrelevant in terms of cognitive overhead associated with a pop-up action itself, except that one that is not co-located bears additional workload akin to that of shifting your gaze away from the road to check on your cell phone who is calling...
>
> Most of the time, most users will not need the popup describing the inlet,
> so most of the time it'll just be an interruption.
In my experience, I found that new users really need that guidance. If not, they can always turn the pop-up off.
Best wishes,
Ico
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