Bug 141942 - Paste special dialog buttons too small and similar
Summary: Paste special dialog buttons too small and similar
Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Calc (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
7.1.2.2 release
Hardware: All All
: medium minor
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: needsUXEval
Depends on: 142337
Blocks:
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2021-04-27 20:49 UTC by Eyal Rozenberg
Modified: 2021-05-21 06:09 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
LO Calc 7.1.2.2 Paste Special Dialog (43.53 KB, image/png)
2021-04-27 20:49 UTC, Eyal Rozenberg
Details
MS Excel Paste Special context menu icons (33.13 KB, image/png)
2021-04-27 20:51 UTC, Eyal Rozenberg
Details
Paste special dialog in 7.2 alpha version (50.64 KB, image/png)
2021-04-29 10:00 UTC, Rizal Muttaqin
Details
Screenshot with gtk3 (35.99 KB, image/png)
2021-05-17 17:59 UTC, Heiko Tietze
Details
Looks fantastic now, Heiko. (kf5 backend) (50.21 KB, image/png)
2021-05-21 06:02 UTC, Rizal Muttaqin
Details

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Description Eyal Rozenberg 2021-04-27 20:49:46 UTC
Created attachment 171465 [details]
LO Calc 7.1.2.2 Paste Special Dialog

The preset buttons in the paste special dialog have a lot of "empty button space", and very small icons relative to the button size. Couple that with their being rather similar to each other, and they end up having the opposite of the intended effect: misdirecting your eye and increasing rather than decreasing the chance of clicking the wrong button.

The similarity is partly due to how the bulk of the icon is a clipboard. I get the motivation of having the clipboard, but it does more good than harm, at least the way things stand right now. And I feel that you sort of need to know what the icon is supposed to mean before you can even guess what it means.

I wonder if they weren't partially inspired by the MS Office paste-mode icons (see attachments). The latter are also not so great, but - they're in a narrow right-click menu, not a dialog; and the clipboard there seems lighter, less pronounced, relative to the indicators of the kind of pasting that goes on.

I don't have an exact suggestion of what I would like to see, especially since there's also the text on the button which would need to move somewhere perhaps. Maybe push it down a bit, and have a "before" and "after" graphic with some arrow, better illustrating what changes in the paste? Anyway, the current state of this is suboptimal IMHO.

PS - It looks like "formatting only" has no icon, but perhaps that would be a separate bug.
Comment 1 Eyal Rozenberg 2021-04-27 20:51:33 UTC
Created attachment 171466 [details]
MS Excel Paste Special context menu icons

Was this the source of inspiration? MS Excel's right-click context menu paste special icons. Not so great, but still a little better than what we have right now due to the non-overbearing background.
Comment 2 Aron Budea 2021-04-28 15:50:08 UTC
Looks like this report could use UX expert input.
Comment 3 Heiko Tietze 2021-04-29 09:13:47 UTC
It's a follow-up to bug 134802. Rizal, what do you think about the icons?
Comment 4 Rizal Muttaqin 2021-04-29 10:00:38 UTC
Created attachment 171502 [details]
Paste special dialog in 7.2 alpha version

(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #3)
> It's a follow-up to bug 134802. Rizal, what do you think about the icons?

(Eyal's report)
>Couple that with their being rather similar to each other, and they end up having the opposite of the intended effect: misdirecting your eye and increasing rather than decreasing the chance of clicking the wrong button.

I disagree with this statement. Simply looking at the content inside the paper even in flashy manner a user can be distinguished the difference. This is not a "find 5 five differences across two picture" game. There's no almost hiding object in the icon.

> The preset buttons in the paste special dialog have a lot of "empty button space", and very small icons relative to the button size.

I am fully agree with this statement. 

Current dev version show much longer button (at least in my KF5 backend version) that can be improved by placing the action in the right side instead of just a tooltip.
Comment 5 Heiko Tietze 2021-04-29 10:05:52 UTC
(In reply to Rizal Muttaqin from comment #4)
> Current dev version show much longer button...

It's not the length that counts- nor whitespace is your enemy. The missing label is an issue, perhaps fallout from https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/109197. 

Larger icons would be nice, IMHO.
Comment 6 Rizal Muttaqin 2021-04-29 10:10:03 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #5)
> (In reply to Rizal Muttaqin from comment #4)
> > Current dev version show much longer button...
> 
> It's not the length that counts- nor whitespace is your enemy. The missing
> label is an issue, perhaps fallout from
> https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/109197. 
> 
> Larger icons would be nice, IMHO.

Let's see again with current icon size plus label.
Comment 7 Eyal Rozenberg 2021-04-29 21:07:24 UTC
(In reply to Rizal Muttaqin from comment #6)
> Simply looking at the content inside the paper

You mean, on the clipboard in each of the icons?

> even in flashy manner a user can be distinguished the difference. 

It needs a quarter-second of concentration... and even when you notice there's some sort of difference, you have to figure out what it means:

* "What does 7.4 mean?"
* "Why is the second piece of text the same color as the clipboard? Or is it the same color? What's special about orange?"
* "Is the first button disabled? Its text is gray."

> There's no almost hiding object in the icon.

The clipboard captures attention better than the number on it; and its details take up as much, or more, area than the number on it.

> Let's see again with current icon size plus label.

I doubt that it will be sufficient, but I'll be patient...
Comment 8 Heiko Tietze 2021-05-07 08:32:52 UTC
(In reply to Rizal Muttaqin from comment #6)
> Let's see again with current icon size plus label.

And progress here?
Comment 9 Rizal Muttaqin 2021-05-07 11:23:22 UTC
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #8)
> (In reply to Rizal Muttaqin from comment #6)
> > Let's see again with current icon size plus label.
> 
> And progress here?
I am not sure whether the patch for adding label should summon this ticket or not
Comment 10 Heiko Tietze 2021-05-17 17:59:01 UTC
Created attachment 172100 [details]
Screenshot with gtk3

It works with gtk3 but not with gen and kf5.

Version: 7.2.0.0.alpha1+ / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: c29f91f3d7a0deb902b900ff07e6c32632b8c958
CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 5.12; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: de-DE (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded
Comment 11 Eyal Rozenberg 2021-05-17 21:39:21 UTC
The icon space vs small-ish image situation is still there in the new screenshot. The icons are less-bad than before, but not really "there". The transpose icon is particularly bad; and you can't understand what the formats & values icon means unless you also look at the values only icon (and even then it takes some mental effort).

Also, light(ish) blue and white are not in enough contrast with each other; that's an issue for two of the icons.
Comment 12 Heiko Tietze 2021-05-19 08:42:26 UTC
Eyal, please try again with a nightly build - probably not before tomorrow.
Comment 13 Rizal Muttaqin 2021-05-21 06:02:03 UTC
Created attachment 172213 [details]
Looks fantastic now, Heiko. (kf5 backend)

Version: 7.2.0.0.alpha1+ / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 4e4e02904fdff021631e7758a277b7c1c7b9378a
CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 5.4; UI render: default; VCL: kf5 (cairo+xcb)
Locale: id-ID (id_ID.UTF-8); UI: en-US
TinderBox: Linux-rpm_deb-x86_64@86-TDF, Branch:master, Time: 2021-05-20_08:14:28
Calc: threaded
Comment 14 Heiko Tietze 2021-05-21 06:09:50 UTC
Solved with bug 142337