Talk:AOO UX Design Exploration - Docked Task Pane Container - Tab User Interface Design

IMO, option 1 is by far the best one: it is clear and easy to understand for everyone.

The challenge on both proposals is to make also clear what every button do: we need really well designed icons, for example, to identify the different options and clear tooltips too.

There is also the point that AOO dockers have a really nice (but somewhat hidden) feature that need to be maintained on the new design: autohide. If instead of opening the docker by clicking on the small arrow you click anywhere else on the bar, the docker opens but as soon as you move your mouse pointer back to the document the docker close by itself: this is really convenient once you get used to it.

A possibility:

• click on a button opens the docker on the selected tool
• click again on the same button hides the docker
• click on another button while docker is open just change tool
• hover on top of a button for a couple of seconds when docker is closed opens it with that tool on "autohide mode"
• click on an empty space on the bar with docker closed opens the docker on the last selected tool in autohide mode.

Regards

Ricardo

--RGB-es 13:45, 1 November 2012 (UTC)