Sunday, October 18, 2015

What are the common idioms for the drop portion of a drag and drop operation?


I'm only concerned here with the other half of a D%D operation, the drop. What are the common idioms to communicate to a user they can drop? And which are the "best" and in what situations?


In particular I would like to know ones that communicate something to the user both before the drag occurs and after the drag occurs. These can be visual or 'tactile' (mouse cursor changes).



Answer




  • Indicate possible drop targets

  • Show a live preview of the results

  • Show what's being dragged in real-time



alt text



  • If you can't drop something somewhere, explain why to the users in a popup near the cursor:


alt text



  • Keep your drop targets big! Drag and drop is already an egregious violation of Fritz's law; no need to make it worse.


No comments:

Post a Comment

technique - How credible is wikipedia?

I understand that this question relates more to wikipedia than it does writing but... If I was going to use wikipedia for a source for a res...