[haiku-bugs] [Haiku] #8769: Add 24 hour time preference under "Time preferences" where time preferences belong.
- From: "jstressman" <trac@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 17:54:44 -0000
#8769: Add 24 hour time preference under "Time preferences" where time
preferences
belong.
-------------------------------------+------------------------------
Reporter: jstressman | Owner: axeld
Type: enhancement | Status: new
Priority: normal | Milestone: R1
Component: Preferences/Time & Date | Version: R1/Development
Keywords: | Blocked By:
Blocking: | Has a Patch: 0
Platform: All |
-------------------------------------+------------------------------
Pardon the length, but I want to drive this point home unequivocally.
First of all I am not saying that it shouldn't be under Locale as well.
I'm saying that it should absolutely //also// be under Time preferences.
It is design error to put a Time setting under Locale preferences alone
and nowhere else (namely //not// putting it under the Time preferences).
I and other people in the chat just now went to the Time settings (right
clicking the clock and choosing Time preferences to change the settings of
the clock's display) to see if there is an option to change to 24 hour
format and didn't find it, thus assuming the option didn't exist.
A user shouldn't have to dig through other system preferences or
documentation to find out that there is such a setting under Locale
preferences, nor should they be required to know about locales and their
relation to time keeping notations. Such a setting should be in the
simplest, most obvious location and require no additional technical
knowledge or searching from the user to find it.
The Locale setting definitely **can** and //should// set a default format
based on locale, but the ability to switch between 12 and 24 notation
manually after that should be in the most obvious place one would go to
change a **time** preference. The **Time** preferences.
Again, it can certainly be in both places, but not putting it in the most
obvious place is a usability error.
Sadly Windows suffers this exact same failure, and you can thusly see
people asking for help to make such a simple change... with well over
2,000,000 hits on google for what should be a completely simple and
intuitive option change. Walkthroughs, tutorials, guides, etc... for this
single tiny setting change.
Here is a telling example of how this failure is viewed: // "It’s really
very simple to enable the system clock to show military time in Windows 7
or Vista, **but the setting is not in an obvious place, so you might not
have found it.**" // and there are countless other examples of people
trying to figure out how to make this simple change.
Let's please not make the same mistake.
Further...
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24-hour_clock#Military_time
// "The 24-hour clock is commonly used there only in some specialist
areas (**military, aviation, navigation, tourism, meteorology, astronomy,
computing, logistics, emergency services, hospitals**), where the
ambiguities of the 12-hour notation are deemed too inconvenient,
cumbersome, or outright dangerous, with the military's use being the most
famous example." //
It's the international standard, countless people and fields use it
related to their personal preference or their work or general fields of
interest etc... not to their locale/region in their mind.
People want to change their clock. They don't want to have to think
through what other technical issue might relate to that setting.
They think "I want my clock to show 24 hour, so I'll go into the
preferences and switch it from 12 to 24." then they don't find that... so
they go on google and start searching for a tutorial on how to possibly
make a change that should have been made in a matter of seconds in the
first place they and countless other people like them went looking for it.
There shouldn't need to be tutorials and guides etc for how to find and
change such a simple **Time preference** in the literal sense.
Here is an example given for why real usability problems aren't fixed, and
it's one I think we're likely to hear in relation to this on... and one
that is accordingly incorrect and invalid;
// "**Usability Problems Get Dismissed As Training Issues** //
// A convenient way for an organization to avoid fixing usability
problems is to dismiss them as training issues. Believing that problems
are training issues supposes that the problems aren’t in the software,
they’re in the users. Users just need to learn how to use the software,
and that would take care of all the problems. An even lazier and less
expensive solution is declaring something a communication issue. People
just need to be told the right way to do something." //
The problem is in software. The solution is to add a simple tiny option
under Time preferences to switch the display mode between 12 and 24 hour.
Not to expect the users to understand locale preferences, or to go do
research to learn about it or figure out where in the system such a simple
setting is actually changed.
// "Effective interfaces do not concern the user with the inner
workings of the system." //
Put the 12/24 hour time preference in the most obvious place. The **Time
preferences**.
Put another way, if a person wanted to change their clock to 24 hour
format in real life, they'd look for a switch on it... their mind, at
least in this country, would be about the TIME itself... finding 24 hour
more logical than 12 as a personal preference... or about their field of
work... medicine, military, etc... but it almost surely would not
**first** think about "Locale". It would think about the clock itself and
switching the mode on it. People extend this life experience to the
computer when it comes to such simple things as changing the time... they
change the time itself on the clock, and flipping the mode from 12 to 24
seems to logically follow to be done the same way... not going and finding
some "where are you?" setting that has it buried under that. They don't
feel like they're changing their time zone. They're not changing **where**
they are. They're just changing the display on the //clock itself//.
Now just to really drive this point home, I did a survey of users across
several chats I'm in on IRC, XMPP, etc. Half of which are even technical
people. Several XMPP developers, a lead Rackspace technician, a video
production engineer... and several Japanese language learners to balance
it out. 11 responses. These are all intelligent people and most of them
are either exceptionally knowledgeable about computers, or about
differences in languages, regional differences, etc.
And guess what the **unanimous** response was?
Every single one first said that they'd go to the clock options in the
system tray. Second to that they'd try to look for "Time and Date"
preferences.
Only one single person said they would try Region/Locale if they couldn't
find it under clock settings (a Japanese language learner familiar with
regional settings), and one user (an XMPP developer) after thinking about
it after it was explained said that it made sense to //also// be there,
but that it should really be in the first place every single person said
they'd look; under the options for the clock itself.
In fact at least Gnome Shell and XFCE on Linux do this;
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d12/phreadom/gnomeshelldateandtime1.png
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d12/phreadom/xfce-datetime-
properties.png
In closing, I think the lead Rackspace technician put it pretty succinctly
when he responded //"if the 'time settings' are located anywhere other
than the 'thing that presents the time' its f#@%tarded."//
A bit blunt, but I think it sums it up.
Put the Time preferences under the Time preferences.
Thanks.
--
Ticket URL: <http://dev.haiku-os.org/ticket/8769>
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