[Audience shouts]<\/strong> CLOSE! THAT! WINDOW!<\/em><\/p>\n [Sound Effects: Applause over Theme Music]<\/strong><\/p>\n [Host]<\/strong> That’s right! We’re playing Close That Window<\/i> – the only gameshow where you get to test basic software usability for Big! Cash! Prizes!<\/p>\n I think you all know how the rules work. I’ll show you a window from a Windows XP application and you just need to tell me what mouse actions are required to Close That Window! <\/p>\n Can you beat the clock? <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Get the answer in time, and you will hear this:<\/p>\n [Sound effect: Ding!]<\/strong><\/p>\n Take too long, and you will be timed out.<\/p>\n [Sound Effect : Buzzer]<\/strong><\/p>\n And remember: If you resort to ALT-F4, or any other keyboard combination that a majority of users are unfamiliar with, you will hear this sound..<\/p>\n [Sound Effect : Wah-Wah-Waaaah forfeit]<\/strong><\/p>\n … and you will lose the round. If you resort to the Task Manager or the cutting the power, you will be disqualified.<\/p>\n Today we will be focussing on Media Players; tools used by a wide-range of users, without special expertise.<\/p>\n Okay, now that we know the rules, let’s start by playing a warm-up round. <\/p>\n Windows Media Player is Microsoft’s recommended Media Player. Here it is in Full Mode, with the Menu Bar and Title Bar displayed.<\/p>\n Now it’s your turn to Close That Window!<\/em><\/p>\n [Sound effect: Ding!]<\/strong><\/p>\n Okay, you got that one easily. That’s no surprise. The Title Bar followed all the look-and-feel conventions of Windows, established for over ten years.<\/p>\n You clicked on the obvious icon, here:<\/p>\n Now, let’s make it harder by putting Media Player in the default mode…<\/p>\n Close That Window!<\/em><\/p>\n [Sound effect: Ding!]<\/strong><\/p>\n Well done!<\/p>\n While it doesn’t follow the conventions, the clues were pretty strong – same shapes for the icons, same relative position in the top-right corner. You shouldn’t have found that one too hard.<\/p>\n You get bonus points if you selected the window, moved the mouse pointer up above <\/em> the visible window so that the menu bar and title bar would appear, and then closed the window the conventional way.<\/p>\n [Sound effect: Whoop Whoop]<\/strong><\/p>\n Oh! The siren tells me that that was a double bonus point round! You get double bonus points if you used the opportunity to select However, if you failed to notice that the window wasn’t selected first, before waving your mouse around above the window, you lose those bonus points. A bit of a trick, I am afraid, because this window has no indicator whether it is active or not.<\/p>\n Let’s get a bit more advanced.<\/p>\n Here is Media Player in Skin Mode.<\/p>\n Close That Window!<\/em><\/p>\n [Sound effect: Ding!]<\/strong><\/p>\n Whoo! Well done. You only just beat the buzzer.<\/p>\n For the player’s at home, here it is: <\/p>\n I am sure that Windows Media Player has other skins, but I can’t work out how to activate them.<\/p>\n Here’s one more from Windows Media Player: Full Screen Mode, with menus displayed.<\/p>\n Close That Window!<\/em><\/p>\n [Sound effect: Ding!]<\/strong><\/p>\n Well done! There were two correct answers here – both of them a bit tough.<\/p>\n The secret is that you can’t<\/em> quit the application from Full-Screen Mode – despite the copious empty space in the top-right corner. First you have to exit full-screen mode, and then you can quit normally.<\/p>\n You can leave full-screen mode by clicking on the icon in the bottom corner, or by bringing up the Context Menu (generally a right-click) and selecting [Sound Effect: Ringing Telephone]<\/strong><\/p>\n Oh wait! I’ve got a call from the judges upstairs.<\/p>\n [Host picks up phone and listens. Nods. Puts down the phone.]<\/strong><\/p>\n [Host]<\/strong> We’ve had a clarification; we WILL accept pressing the Escape key to leave Full Screen Mode – it is a well-known keyboard short-cut.<\/p>\n Now for the next round. CyberLink’s PowerDVD is supplied free with LG-brand DVD players. This is version 5.0, as I found by reading the About box by simply clicking on the LG logo near the top centre.<\/p>\n Close That Window!<\/em><\/p>\n [Sound effect: Ding!]<\/strong><\/p>\n Very well done! You weren’t distracted for too long by the numeric keypad on the right, or and you didn’t spend much time trying to make out what the icons under the counter display do. You didn’t even try to click on that LG logo! This one was simple..<\/p>\n Like PowerDVD, RealPlayer 10 ignores all of the colours, fonts and font-sizes that I selected in the Display Control Panel. However, it is pretty clear now how to close it. No points for this one…<\/p>\n So, now here’s a tricky example. I have put it in Theater Mode, and then triggered the Start Menu by clicking on a window on another monitor. Can you quit without leaving Theater Mode first?<\/p>\n Without leaving Theater Mode, Close That Window!<\/em><\/p>\n [Sound effect: Buzzer]<\/strong><\/p>\n Oh dear, the buzzer sounded. You didn’t get the trick. First, you need to click on the centre of the screen to reselect the application. That will reveal the tool-bar at the bottom of the page.<\/p>\n Then you need to find the familiar icon in the unfamiliar location.<\/p>\n Whoa! Getting tricky, huh? Fortunately, that wasn’t an elimination round, so you get one more chance at the huge cash prizes.<\/p>\n Got a motherboard with an onboard RealTek Audio chipset? Then you need the RealTek audio drivers, with the built-in media player called AVRack. I don’t know what version this is; I simply couldn’t work it out.<\/p>\n You know what to do! Close That Window!<\/em><\/p>\n [Sound effect: Buzzer]<\/strong><\/p>\n Oh I’m sorry! The timer ran out! You lost!<\/p>\n The correct answer was here:<\/p>\n Notice how the icon is almost recognizable when you have already selected it?<\/p>\n So that’s it for another week of Close That Window! <\/p>\n Next week we will look at closing individual documents in Microsoft Office 2003<\/a>.<\/p>\n Until next week, remember: Real skin looks good and feels good. But application skins look-and-feel bad. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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View | Full Mode Options | Show Menu Bar<\/code><\/strong>, so that this usability problem wouldn’t happen again.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Exit Full-Screen<\/code><\/strong> from the context menu.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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