Re: HOOD?

[john@assen.demon.co.uk (John McCabe)]

Hugh Dunne <dunneh@lhd.logica.com> wrote:

>"Michel.Guyot" <mguyot@sema-taa.fr> wrote:

<..snip..>

>I recognise that Concerto is a powerful tool with a lot of features.
>My problem with it is that the user interface is highly idiosyncratic,
>counterintuitive and inconsistent, and follows no conventions that I'm
>aware of. What is the point of having powerful features if people can't
>figure out how to use them?

This type of problem seems to be quite common with tools of this sort.
I find IPSYS Hood a bit of a handful at times because the
functionality of the mouse buttons (for example) seems to be a bit hit
and miss. Sometimes you use the right button to get a menu up,
sometimes the left, selecting text is very odd, and theres no apparent
support for cut and paste in the ODS editor.

I've also been looking at Teamwork by Cadre recently, and it also
seems to be a bit idiosyncratic and hit and miss, especially when
you're trying to attach text to a data flow in the DFD editor!

And the HOOD Nice interface has its quirks as well (we had trouble
trying to get it to run under Motif for a start never mind getting it
to look consistent across X Servers!)

The PC based tools however seem to stick a bit closer to the usual PC
conventions (i.e. ^C to copy, ^V to paste and so on).

If only the manufacturers paid a bit more attention to this kind of
thing, they may find that criticism of their products is much more
constructive. The user interface is supposed to be there to facilitate
the use of the tool (and method), not to hinder it, and an irritating
and inconsistent user interface is highly likely to give the user a
negative attitude towards the tool from the outset.



Best Regards
John McCabe <john@assen.demon.co.uk>