Synopsis
This article examines the use of a Flexible Widget Layout(FWL) to personalize graphical user interfaces.
Pros
1) This method could potentially reduce the learning curve for a lot of applications and software. For example, using Photoshop would become a lot more intuitive if I had experience using some other image editing software since the layout would be the same.
2) This will make writing new software a lot easier because you wouldn’t have to design a brand new interface for every new application.
3) Really liked the idea of creating a desirability scale to determine which is the most preferred layout from a bunch of possible combinations.
Cons
1) Users felt that the system was not intuitive until they figured out how it worked.
2) Would be very difficult to write tutorials for applications if every user had a completely different interface.
3) A lot of the users felt that the system did not offer them enough customization options. For example, they couldn’t use the mouse to resize the widgets to fit their needs.