Redundancy: Good or Bad?
A couple weeks ago, I was updating my rather outdated Ubuntu Linux virtual machine from Feisty Fawn to Gutsy Gibbon. The process was pleasantly painless, but I did note something a little odd in the interface. The package manager posted an informative status dialogue while downloading updates. The title bar says "Downloading package files". And then again, inside the box it says "Downloading package files".
The structural information designer part me objects to the redundancy of information. It doesn't make sense to have the user read the same thing twice. It wastes both the developer's time presenting it twice and the user's time reading it twice, and it adds another item that must be checked as part of the QA process.
But the user coaching side of me points out that this pretty much ensures the user will notice what's going on. It doesn't matter whether they read the window title or its contents, because they'll get the same message. And thus it's worth the extra developer and QA time.
Help me out here: is informational redundancy good or bad?
Comments
Peter nailed it on the head. Usability trumps redundancy. I don't look at the window title when I have a window open, but I do care about the title when it is minimized. Thus having it in both places is great.
If you make it the same variable I don't care if its in there 100 times, the QA part is easy. I've also noticed this type of thing in other installation packages and to be honest I don't mind. I find that most times I only read half of whats in those boxes anyway.
I have no problem with the redundancy. I have no problem with the redundancy.
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You definitely want it in the title bar, since the contents of the title bar are used to identify the window in many contexts (task bars, task managers, windowing managers, etc). As for putting it inside the window itself, I feel the same way as you... it does seem redundant to have it in both places, and not only that, but to have those to places visually so close together. I guess for myself, I would tend to tune out the window titles when looking at the window itself - I only pay attention to them in the context of switching between various tasks, and once I've switched to a task I already know what it is, so there's no need for the content to be repeated. I don't know what Joe Average user would do. Seems like some user research would be good.