Don,
as usual I think we need to go back to the Xerox Star. I'm not sure about this and perhaps you should talk with some of the other people who were around in the 80's and were part of both the Xerox team and responsible of transferring the Star to Mac, Win, and X. Perhaps people like Bill Verplank, Bill Buxton, Brad Myers, or Alan Dix. Verplank was part of the Star design team at Xerox.
If remember that the arrows on the scrollbar of the Star were pointed in oposite directions compared to what we have today. But the text still moved upwards and the window down as you scrolled down. This continued on the Mac, and hence Win and X. But they changed the arrow directions.
I'm not sure it was a decision, but I think it was rather a remnant from the precedent design. It easy to copy the form from successful precedents, without understanding the rationale. And then you change something, but keep other things without really understanding why. Then the de facto standard is set; An operating system and its design guidelines can be very strong in creating a standard.
Hm.. but this doesn't answer your question... Well' perhaps it does. In the Star it scrolled in that direction, even though the arrows pointed the other way. This became the standard as it was copied to the Mac, and consequently Win and X, the scrolling direction was kept but the arrows changed direction.
Correct me if I got it wrong.
// Mattias
--
Mattias Arvola, Ph.D. in Cognitive Systems.
Co-ordinator for the Undergraduate Programme in Cognitive Science.
Sr. lecturer in Interaction Design.
Linköping University.
www.arvola.se
|