Hi Dan,

Gotcha. And as I mentioned to Craig, I generally do not like blinking whatevers so do not use them. But on the other hand nobody is always required to develop applications for "everybody". Some may be client driven or client specific.

I have read some of Cooper's books and have gained value form them, but I imagine there are those who don't like his methodologies either. :-)

In light of your indication regarding blinking being visual and so the vision-impaired cannot detect it, then I wonder why MS would use it in the Task Bar, or maybe there is another attention getting mechanism fired in conjunction with it. If the designers say it's "never good", then why use it in any situation? Ah well, I imagine MS is so big that sometimes the right hand doesn't know what the left foot is doing. :-)


>One of the reasons I've heard for not using blinking text is because it's visual. What is a vision-impaired user supposed to do with it? (It's weak, I know, and MS doesn't 100% follow their own guidelines.)
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>One of the truly great reads is Alan Cooper's 'ABOUT FACE' -- all about interface -- and what makes it great reading is he tears apart the Windows interface for examples. 'TOG ON INTERFACE' is another great book, partly because he picks apart his foibles from his years in charge of the Mac interface.
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>One of the best Devcon sessions I've ever been through was a design engineer from Microsoft who worked on nothing but interface issues. She showed dialogs from Windows itself in two forms: 1) as delivered from developers and 2) after the designers had a pass. Subtle changes make a HUGE difference.
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>In general, when a designer offers an opinion (don't mix stripes & plaid) I'll listen. I've never EVER heard a designer say blinking is good. Or even OK to do once in a while. <g>
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>Dan
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>>I personally do not like blinking text and do not use it ( unless the client required it for some reason ). However, with regard to MS's recommendation on this issue, it is somewhat interesting that MS itself uses this technique in the Windows Task Bar. I am simply wondering what the justification would be in that case ( Just thinklng out loud here. I have no reason to think you know the amswer ).