[1eyedjack]

barmar, on 2010-September-22, 21:10, said:

That seems like preference bloat. And I'm pretty sure Fred is not a big fan of having lots of preferences, as they tend to overwhelm many users.

It's a delicate balancing act -- power users want full customization, but casual users don't want to be confused.

Apologies for the necro-response, but as the thread has already been resuscitated anyway ...

It seems to me that for the most part both power users and casual users can be accommodated. At least, there is scope for applying intelligence to the design of the interface to accommodate both, acknowledging that there is no black and white, only degrees.

I can think of three key elements to a good design (there are bound to be others)

1) Attempt to identify settings that have no clear majority preference, or have significant minority preferences, and concentrate on providing choices for these settings.

2) Attempt to predict the most popular settings, where choices are to be provided, and make them defaults.

3) "Nest" the options so that the user is not presented with excessive detail unless deliberately chosen by the user.

As to the first item, it may not be obvious at the outset which settings would have diverse popularity. But at least given time you could gather data in retrospect based on actual settings chosen. But that of course requires you to provide the choice, so there may be an element of Catch 22 there, depending on how the choice is presented.

As to the second item, the problem here is that many users of the casual variety may never experiment with settings, so measuring their popularity could distort the impression as reinforcing the justification for the default settings. I, for example, have a lot of difficulty understanding why "pictures of cards" mode should be provided at all, let alone as the default, and yet if casual users never swap to diagram mode it will perpetuate the myth that there is merit in the pictures mode.

But the third item is the master key, and I think of relevance to this thread.

How much more "bloated" would the interface become if, on the question of autoplay singletons, the options were

(1) On
(2) Off
(3) Advanced (opens submenu)

than

(1) On
(2) Off

A casual user presented with either menu would probably choose between (1) and (2), and would not be bothered by the presence of (3)
BUT, if they choose to drill down to option (3), that in itself would be evidence that, even if casual users, in this case neither of options (1) and (2) "cut it" for them. That would justify the inclusion of option (3) however bloated you might predict it to be.

That would be an example of how to design an interface that caters for the power user without bloating it for the casual user.

[tsankaR]

diana_eva, on 2016-October-02, 09:27, said:

Autoplay singleton works only for your own hand, it won't auto-play opps' cards.

i know that. but what i said was that if the opps had set auto play singleton ON, i could easily make it out. And I also gave an example saying it in a recent tourney, some cards played by opps were normal speed, but some cards were fast. on analysing that i saw that the "fast" cards were singletons. I thought I need not elaborate so much.

[barmar]

tsankaR, on 2016-October-01, 06:51, said:

the delay for auto play singletons must be increased. recently i played in acbl tourney. the opps were humans and i would easily make out the singleton, it was fast. so please increase the duration of auto play singleton

The delay is randomly adjusted, with a minimum that isn't supposed to be too fast to be obvious. In my experience, it's often slower than I would play by hand.

[Wainfleet]

if I have 'autoplay singletons' set to 'on', does it just autoplay MY singletons. or everyone's?

[Vampyr]

1eyedjack, on 2016-October-02, 10:49, said:

1) At. I, for example, have a lot of difficulty understanding why "pictures of cards" mode should be provided at all,

I don’t know either, but my guess is that it is what most people prefer. I would not be surprised if a large majority had a very strong preference for “pictures of cards”.

Of course, I am writing this during the COVID-19 pandemic, when a lot of people are using BBO as a substitute for live bridge. No actual bridge table that I have ever sat at provided cards in diagram form.

[shyams]

Wainfleet, on 2020-July-21, 04:23, said:

if I have 'autoplay singletons' set to 'on', does it just autoplay MY singletons. or everyone's?

Yours and, when you are declaring, your dummy's. It does not impact other players' cardplay.

[pescetom]

Vampyr, on 2020-July-21, 09:30, said:

I don’t know either, but my guess is that it is what most people prefer. I would not be surprised if a large majority had a very strong preference for “pictures of cards”.

Of course, I am writing this during the COVID-19 pandemic, when a lot of people are using BBO as a substitute for live bridge. No actual bridge table that I have ever sat at provided cards in diagram form.

Many BBO users are simply unaware that hand diagram form is available. When they do experience it they tend to reject it initially, as you say. Some of them (like me) then change their mind. But when new users (coming from 'live' bridge) are exposed to both forms and given the choice, the majority plump for hand diagram in my experience.