Thread: Maemo 5 Alpha SDK released
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kanishou is offline kanishou
2009-04-14 , 10:51
Posts: 341 | Thanked: 607 times | Joined on Dec 2008
#201
Originally Posted by arsinmsn View Post
So the question with the lack of a cancel button is: how do you teach (or remind) the user that the dialog box is closed. I think the answer is to standardize the ways boxes and windows can disappear. So a box being hidden by a window (the other likely possibility when clicking outside the dialog) should disappear differently from a box being dismissed. Presumably the style of dismissal disappearance would be similar in style to what happens to a window when its application has closed. Some small animation might be appropriate.
Clicking outside a window will always close it, it won't get hidden by selecting something behind it. It's a common mechanic all over the UI, so it becomes perfectly natural after five seconds of "training".

And it's really not any different than what is already very common on our desktops (menu popups are closed by clicking outside) and all over the web (navigation popups are regularly closed the same way). It's just made even more discoverable by the blurring of the background.

In this case difference does indeed equal advantage, because it's plain more effective to use the large unused space for closing instead of a small button.